DHS Tightens Immigration Ban on Communists and Totalitarians

A Filipino activist uses a cloth printed with the hammer and sickle symbol to cover his fa
AP Photo/Aaron Favila
Neil Munro

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is tightening curbs against the legal immigration and naturalization of communists and other advocates of totalitarian political movements.

The new curbs are expected to impact Chineses elites — most of whom are also members of China’s communist party — and may help U.S. officials to exclude Islamic radicals, such as members of the multinational Islamic Brotherhood.

“In general, any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate), domestic or foreign, is inadmissible,” says an October 2 updated policy manual provided to citizenship adjudicators at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency.

“‘Any other totalitarian party’ is defined as ‘an organization which advocates the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship or totalitarianism,'” says the USCIS manual, which was emphasized in an October 2 “Policy Alert” from the agency.

The rejection of communists is part of a centuries-old policy of excluding foreigners who are likely hostile to the United States, including monarchists, aristocrats, fascists, and communists. For example, the naturalization pledge requires new citizens to declare that “I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen.”

The new policy adds “Islamism … because it focuses on the ‘Ism’ rather than the Islam of Islamism,” said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies. He added:

This seems like a sensible sensible way to adjust the regulations to apply to future threats that we can’t foresee. It’s not just about the totalitarian ideology of Islamism, but other totalitarian ideologies that might pop up … It makes sense to have a somewhat broader grounds of inadmissibility so that we can keep out bad guys whose worldview we can’t foresee.

Pro-migration groups, progressives, and Islamic radicals will likely oppose the application of the policy to Islamic adherents.

China’s communist government is already objecting, according to an October 5 report by the U.S.-funded Radio Free Asia news service:

… foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying expressed “strong dissatisfaction.”

“If this is true, then I think it’s very sad,” Hua told a regular news briefing in Beijing. “We hope that the United States will end this policy, which violates the basic norms of international relations and does little to boost the image and credibility of the U.S. as a great power.”

The curbs on communists from China could have a far-reaching impact because many wealthy Chinese are also members of China’s communist party, said the RFA report:

A former party member surnamed Mao said the middle- and higher-ranking members of the party will be hardest hit by the new policy.

“This is because they all have relatives, property and children in the U.S.,” Mao said. “The lower-ranking party members would never have the option of going to the U.S., so only some people in the system will be directly affected.”

The service also said that U.S. border agencies had blocked the entry of some Chinese people:

Hong Kong’s Apple Daily newspaper reported last month that a CCP member and retired Chinese official was denied entry to the U.S. and had his visa revoked after trying to visit his daughter there, amid unconfirmed reports that the U.S. is getting ready to impose a total entry ban on CCP members.

A Chinese woman who had immigrated to the U.S. said her father, a retired cadre of the Chinese Communist Party, was denied entry into the country at Detroit Metropolitan Airport on Sept. 17, the Apple Daily quoted Zheng Cunzhu as saying.

The USCIS’s N-400 application for citizenship has long excluded people who were violent anarchists, members of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party, or the Soviet Union’s communist party.

For example, since World War II, the N-400 document has been repeatedly updated but continues to ask applicants:

Between March 23, 1933 and May 8, 1945, did you work for or associate in any way (either directly or indirectly) with: A. The Nazi government of Germany? B. Any government in any area occupied by, allied with, or established with the help of the Nazi? C. Any German, Nazi, or s.s. military unit, paramilitaiy unit, self-defense unit, vigilante unit, citizen unit, 0 Yes [X No police unit, government agency or office, extermination camp, concentration camp, prisoner of war camp, prison, labor camp, or transit camp?

Every year, the federal government invites roughly one million legal immigrants to compete for jobs and housing against the roughly four million Americans who turn 18 that year.

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