On Wednesday, the United States Department of State announced new guidelines that direct consular personnel to check for signals of “hostility” toward the United States of America.
These rules are intended to conduct a more comprehensive social media screening of all applicants for international student visas and exchange visitor visas.
All of the applicants’ social media profiles will be required to be set to “public,” and they will be informed that any refusal to do so may be interpreted as an attempt to avoid answering questions.
Officials from the United States who are evaluating applications have been instructed to look for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States.”
According to a senior official at the State Department, the new criteria for vetting are a part of an effort to “ensure we are properly screening every single person attempting to visit our country” and to make the United States of America and its educational institutions safer.
Consular posts were able to resume scheduling application interviews, which had been briefly delayed while the State Department prepared for more stringent social media vetting, according to the official.
The State Department announced in a cable that it was going to enhance social media screening and vetting for applications for foreign student visas.
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This announcement was made toward the end of the previous month.
In April, Citizenship and Immigration Services made an announcement that they would be considering “antisemitic activity on social media” as “grounds for denying immigration benefit requests.” This came after the announcement was made.
The effect of this is that counselors who work with international students who are interested in attending college in the United States have already started recommending such students to remove items from their social media accounts that could potentially catch the notice of authorities from the State Department.
