On October 1, 2026, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York rejected the government’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by three labor unions against the Departments of State and Homeland Security. The decision means that the case will proceed to the stage of examining the substance of the allegations, but it does not represent a final ruling that the monitoring program is unlawful.
What is the court considering?
The United Auto Workers (UAW), the Communications Workers of America (CWA), and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) filed the lawsuit in October 2025. The unions say that a government program uses artificial intelligence and other automated technologies to monitor the social media accounts of visa and green-card holders, with the aim of identifying and punishing people who express views that are not accepted by the government.
The lawsuit accuses the program of violating the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act. The unions are represented in the case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Muslim Advocates, and the Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic.
What did the court decide?
The court found that the threat of adverse immigration consequences, amid what it described as stringent government immigration policies, is reasonably sufficient to deter an ordinary person from exercising First Amendment rights. It concluded that noncitizens may limit their expression of disfavored views because of the credible threat of adverse immigration action.
The court also rejected treating the monitoring’s impact on the unions as incidental. According to the decision, members’ freedom to speak, assemble, and appear publicly is the mechanism the unions rely on to recruit, organize, and communicate with members and negotiate on their behalf. Therefore, a program accused of silencing members or driving them away from unions could affect the unions’ own representative function.
Why does this matter?
The decision’s immediate legal significance is that it allows the challenge to continue rather than resolving the case based on the government’s procedural arguments. In practice, statements from the plaintiffs’ representatives indicate that some members changed how they use social media, reduced their engagement with union content, or stopped posting and participating in offline activities out of fear of scrutiny or effects on their immigration benefits.
This highlights that the alleged impact of monitoring is not limited to data collection; the mere belief that posts could affect immigration status can change individuals’ behavior and weaken unions’ ability to communicate and organize. Fundamental questions remain open, including the scope of the program, how the data are used, and whether government actions actually target particular views. These issues will be examined at the merits stage of the case.
Plaintiffs’ positions
Shawn Fain, president of UAW, said that no one should fear government monitoring or retaliation related to their immigration status because they express their opinion or participate in their union. Claude Cummings Jr., president of CWA, described the decision as a first step toward protecting freedom of speech, protest, and organizing. Randi Weingarten, president of AFT, also said that the decision supports the challenge to monitoring of dissenters.
Lisa Femia, lead counsel at EFF, said that union members had changed their online and offline engagement out of fear of targeting connected to immigration benefits. Muslim Advocates said that the ruling represents a step toward holding the government accountable for the monitoring program, while Nick Jones, a student at the Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic, expressed his expectation that the case would proceed to examination of its merits.