(Columbus, Ohio – 4/29/18) – Member organizations of the Interfaith March for Peace & Justice – Columbus, an interfaith, social justice coalition in Central Ohio, are urging all Americans concerned about civil rights and free speech to contact Senator Rob Portman, who sits on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and ask him to work to halt the implementation and funding of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “Visa Lifecycle Vetting” program, formerly known as the “Extreme Vetting Initiative.”
SEE: The Brennan Center for Justice’s ICE Extreme Vetting Initiative: A Resource Page
The program is ICE’s plan to monitor Twitter, Facebook, and other parts of the internet via machine learning to automatically flag people for deportation or visa denial.
What is wrong with the Visa Lifecyle Program?
- The Visa Lifecyle Vetting program will function as a digital Muslim ban.
- The program uses the exact same, ill-defined criteria from the original Muslim ban in 2017. These are not legally defined criteria and thus could easily be weaponized to target Muslims and other marginalized communities.
- The Visa Lifecycle Vetting program will chill free speech.
- ICE wishes to perform regular, periodic and/or continuous review and vetting of people after they enter the United States. This continuous vetting will encourage self-censorship by discouraging people from expressing anti-government sentiment online.
- The Visa Lifecycle Vetting program will be ineffective.
- According to a letter to DHS signed by 54 of the nation’s leading experts in machine learning and automated decision-making, “no computational methods can provide reliable or objective assessments of the traits that ICE seeks to measure.”
IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUESTED –
Contact: Senator Rob Portman of Ohio and member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee
Phone: (202) 224-3353
Sample Script:
“Good morning/afternoon,
My name is _____________. I’m calling Senator Portman to urge him to use his role on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to stop the implementation of ICE’s “Visa Lifecycle Vetting” program and stop taxpayer dollars from funding it. The program will act as “digital Muslim ban” and is a serious threat to due process, civil liberties, and would inevitably chill free speech. I would like Senator Portman to publicly oppose this program as it is contradictory to our values as Americans. Thank you.”
The Interfaith March for Peace & Justice is a nonpartisan event meant to affirm the freedom of religion and to condemn all acts of discrimination directed at people because of their religion, race, or place of origin. The March was initiated by a small group of people in Columbus, Ohio in April 2017 and has now spread to cities across the country.