The US Department of Homeland Security will soon start expanding the kinds of information it collects on immigrants to include social media information and search results.

The new policy, which covers immigrants who have obtained a green card and even naturalized citizens, will take effect from October 18. The announcement from the Trump regime was published in the Federal Register, as first spotted by BuzzFeed News.

The latest move has alarmed lawyers and privacy groups worried about how the information will be used.

"We see this as part of a larger process of high-tech surveillance of immigrants and more and more people being subjected to social media screening," Adam Schwartz, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told BuzzFeed News.

"There's a growing trend at the Department of Homeland Security to be snooping on the social media of immigrants and foreigners and we think it's an invasion of privacy and deters freedom of speech."

The policy would also affect all US citizens who communicate with immigrants, Schwartz said.