A new directive issued by the Department of Homeland Security orders U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers to go far beyond statutory requirements and judge applicants for entry and naturalization based on the Trump administration’s new “holistic” definition of “ethical standards and expectations” and “good moral character.” Depending on how “good moral character” is judged, activists fear that LGBTQ+ immigrants may be denied naturalization.

The guidance is a throwback to a period when LGBTQ+ visitors and immigrants were routinely deemed “psychopathic personalities” and barred from entry to the United States as immoral aliens. The authors of the revised guidance are behind the draconian immigration restrictions proposed in Project 2025, the Christian nationalist Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the second Trump administration.

Related

New immigration policy bans visas for trans athletes: “Not in the national interest”

That same document says that straight marriage is best for children and condones discrimination against LGBTQ+ people based on a “religious freedom” to do so.

“Our fear stems from the incontrovertible fact that the USCIS policy memo does not exist in isolation. It is part of a larger Project 2025 agenda,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, the civil liberties advocacy group. “Many of the authors of Project 2025 are high-ranking Trump administration veterans now back in power, writing the playbook for policies like this one.”

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

“They have made clear that their goal is to resurrect outdated notions of morality and enforce them on society — an approach that has historically been wielded as a weapon against sexual and gender minorities,” Besen said, following the release of the new policy on Friday.

For decades, immigration officials interpreted “good moral character” to mean that a candidate for naturalization hasn’t committed certain criminal offenses. But now the administration wants immigration officials to take a more “holistic” approach to assessing “good moral character” and consider additional factors.

Potential “Trojan horses” targeting the LGBTQ+ community in the new guidance include a directive to scrutinize the “Family Responsibilities” of candidates for naturalization. The Christian nationalist ideology underpinning Project 2025 and espoused by its authors doesn’t recognize the legitimacy of LGBTQ+ families, including their legal right to marry or adopt children. An officer influenced by the same far-right ideology could deem a married same-sex couple raising children in conflict with their own subjective interpretation of “good moral character.”

Officers are also ordered to take “Severe Violations of Religious Freedom” into account in their evaluations. That means that a gay immigrant who protested a local church’s anti-LGBTQ+ views could be labeled as violating the administration’s interpretation of “religious freedom” that condones discrimination against gay people. And at least two Supreme Court justices believe that gay people having the right to marry is a violation of Christians’ religious freedom.

While the directives may sound “neutral or even benign” on their own, Besen said, “in reality they are invitations to discrimination, giving bigoted adjudicators free rein to deny LGBTQ people citizenship for reasons that have nothing to do with law and everything to do with prejudice.”

“Once again, LGBTQ immigrants risk being judged not by the law, but by the prejudices of individual officers empowered to play moral arbiter,” Besen said. “That is fundamentally un-American and contradicts the principle of equal protection under the law.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.