U.S. tightens visa vetting with social media checks
WASHINGTON: The United States is restarting student visa appointments but will significantly tighten its social media vetting in a bid to identify applicants who are hostile towards the United States or pose a threat to national security, according to an internal State Department cable reviewed by Reuters.
U.S. consular officers are required to conduct a "comprehensive and thorough vetting" of all student and exchange visitor applicants to identify those who "bear hostile attitudes toward our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles," said the cable, which was dated June 18 and sent to U.S. missions on Wednesday.
On May 27, the Trump administration ordered its missions abroad to stop scheduling new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants as the State Department prepared to expand social media vetting of foreign students.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said updated guidance would be released once a review was completed.
The cable, which was signed by Rubio, directed officers to look for "applicants who demonstrate a history of political activism, especially when it is associated with violence or with the views and activities described above, you must consider the likelihood they would continue such activity in the United States."
A State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said under new guidance, consular officers will ask for access to applicants' social media accounts.
"To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas will be asked to adjust the privacy settings on all their social media profiles to 'public.'
Posts may resume scheduling F, M, and J visa applications," the official said.
"The enhanced social media vetting will ensure we are properly screening every single person attempting to visit our country."
Rubio, Trump's top diplomat and national security adviser, has said he has revoked the visas of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, including students, because they got involved in activities that he said went against U.S. foreign policy priorities.
Those activities include support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel's conduct in the war in Gaza.
The change was earlier reported by The Free Press.
Trump's critics have said the administration's actions are an attack on free speech rights under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
In a cable in late May, Rubio had asked U.S. consular missions around the world to begin additional vetting of visa applicants looking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose. The Trump administration has been in a multifront dispute with the nation's oldest and wealthiest university.
The directive said that would serve as a "pilot for expanded screening and vetting of visa applicants", raising the possibility of the measures being used as a template for applicants to other universities.
In the same cable, consular officers were directed to consider questioning the credibility of an applicant if the individual's social media accounts were private, as that may be reflective of "evasiveness".
Activities deemed antisemitic or anti-American are increasingly a red flag for the administration in its visa determination process. Such activities were raised as a source of concern by the State Department in a separate internal cable dated June 14 that recommended 36 more countries be added to Trump's travel ban.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
25 minutes ago
- The Star
Tunisia sentences ex-President Marzouki to 22 years in absentia
Former Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki submits his candidacy for the presidential election in Tunis, Tunisia August 7, 2019. Picture taken August 7, 2019. REUTERS/Zoubeir Souissi/File photo TUNIS (Reuters) -A Tunisian court on Friday handed down a 22‑year prison sentence in absentia to former President Moncef Marzouki, a fierce critic of President Kais Saied, on charges of undermining state security, raising the opposition's fears of an escalating crackdown against critics. Marzouki, who was president from 2011 to 2014, accuses Saied of establishing an authoritarian regime after dismissing parliament and ruling by decree since he seized almost all powers in 2011. Saied defends his actions as necessary steps to stabilise Tunisia. This is the third ruling against Marzouki, after a court ruled last year to imprison him for eight years and four years before that in various other cases. Commenting on the ruling, Marzouki said from his exile in Paris: "I say to these judges: your rulings are invalid, and you are invalid ... you will be tried soon". "Democracy will return", he added. Earlier on Friday, another court sentenced Sahbi Atig, a senior official in Ennahda, the country's main opposition party, to 15 years in prison on charges of money laundering, his lawyer said. The 15-year sentence was shorter than some sentences handed down recently. In April, a court sentenced a string of opposition leaders, businessmen and lawyers to prison terms of up to 66 years, on conspiracy charges. Most of the leaders of political parties in Tunisia are in prison, including Abir Moussi, leader of the Free Constitutional Party, and Rached Ghannouchi, the head of Ennahda - two of Saied's most prominent opponents. (Reporting by Tarek AmaraEditing by Sandra Maler)
The Sun
31 minutes ago
- The Sun
US judge orders release of pro-Palestinian protest leader
NEW YORK: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration on Friday to release Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student who became a leader of pro-Palestinian campus protests. Khalil, a legal permanent US resident who is married to a US citizen and has a US-born son, has been in custody since March facing potential deportation. District Judge Michael Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release on bail during a hearing on Friday and he will be allowed to return to New York while his deportation case proceeds. 'After more than three months, we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and know that Mahmoud is on his way home,' his wife, Michigan-born dentist Noor Abdalla, said in a statement. 'We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family and so many others the government is trying to silence for speaking out against Israel's ongoing genocide against Palestinians,' added Abdalla, who gave birth to the couple's first child while her husband was in detention. Amol Sinha, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, which is among the groups representing Khalil, welcomed the release order. 'This is an important step in vindicating Mr Khalil's rights as he continues to be unlawfully targeted by the federal government for his advocacy in support of Palestinian rights,' Sinha said. 'We're confident he will ultimately prevail in the fight for his freedom.' Since his March 8 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Khalil has become a symbol of President Donald Trump's campaign to stifle pro-Palestinian student activism against the Gaza war, in the name of curbing anti-Semitism. At the time a graduate student at Columbia University in New York, Khalil was one of the most visible leaders of nationwide campus protests against Israel's war in Gaza. Following his arrest, US authorities transferred Khalil, who was born in Syria to Palestinian parents, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) from his home in New York to a detention center in Louisiana, pending deportation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has invoked a law approved during the 1950s Red Scare that allows the United States to remove foreigners seen as adverse to US foreign policy. Rubio argues that US constitutional protections of free speech do not apply to foreigners and that he alone can make decisions without judicial review. Hundreds of students have seen their visas revoked, with some saying they were targeted for everything from writing opinion articles to minor arrest records. Farbiarz ruled last week that the government could not detain or deport Khalil based on Rubio's assertions that his presence on US soil poses a national security threat. The government has also alleged as grounds to detain and deport Khalil that there were inaccuracies in his application for permanent residency.
The Sun
40 minutes ago
- The Sun
Trump pushes forward on mass layoffs at Voice of America
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump's administration on Friday ordered mass layoffs at Voice of America and other government-funded media, moving ahead with gutting the outlets despite legal disputes and criticism that US adversaries will benefit. Kari Lake, a fervent Trump supporter named to a senior role at the US Agency for Global Media, said the notices were a 'long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.' Lake said in a statement that she would work with the State Department and Congress to 'make sure the telling of America's story is modernized, effective and aligned with America's foreign policy.' Trump issued an order in March that froze Voice of America (VOA) for the first time since it was founded in 1942. Termination notices were sent to 639 employees on Friday, after previous offers of voluntary departures and dismissals of contractors. Some 1,400 positions have been eliminated, with only 250 remaining, Lake said. Voice of America layoffs included journalists from its Persian service who had briefly been brought back to work after Israel attacked Iran a week ago. Employees have filed a lawsuit challenging Lake's actions, which come even though Congress had already appropriated funding. The mass firing decision 'spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds the US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,' the three plaintiffs wrote in a statement. 'Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and extremist groups are flooding the information space with anti-American propaganda. Do not cede this ground by silencing America's voice,' said the three complainants, Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper. Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the 'decimation of US broadcasting leaves authoritarian propaganda unchecked by US backed independent media and is a perversion of the law and congressional intent.' 'It is a dark day for the truth,' she wrote on X. Trump frequently attacks media outlets and has scoffed at the so-called editorial firewall at VOA which prevents the government from intervening in its coverage, something he at times has considered too critical of his administration. One outlet preserved by the mass cuts has been Radio Marti, which broadcasts into Cuba and enjoys support from anti-communist Cuban-American Republican lawmakers. Other outlets funded by the US government have included Radio Free Asia, which was set up to provide news to Asian countries without a free press and is now operating in a limited capacity. Radio Free Europe, formed with a similar mission for Soviet bloc nations during the Cold War, has survived thanks to support from the Czech government.
