US resumes student visas but applicants must unlock social media profiles
The US State Department says it will resume scheduling appointments for international student visas, but will ask all applicants to make their social media accounts public for enhanced screening.Officials have been instructed to expand social media vetting of applicants and search for "any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States".The Trump administration had halted the scheduling of student visa appointments in late May as it prepared to step up measures to restrict applicants deemed hostile to the US.The guidelines will impact all applicants who apply for F visas, which are primarily used by students.
Applicants for the M visas, used for vocational students, and the J visas, used by exchange students, will also be impacted, a State Department spokesperson said.Those who keep their social media accounts private may be deemed as trying to hide their activity, the department added."It is an expectation from American citizens that their government will make every effort to make our country safer, and that is exactly what the Trump Administration is doing every single day," a senior State Department official said.Officers have also been instructed to screen for those "who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to national security; or who perpetrate unlawful anti-Semitic harassment or violence".The move is part of a broader crackdown by the Trump administration against America's most elite universities. President Donald Trump has deemed these institutions too left-wing, and has accused them of failing to combat antisemitism when pro-Palestinian protests have unfolded on campuses.Trump's crackdown has also included the freezing of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for universities, as well as moving to deport students or revoking visas for others. Many of those actions have been blocked by US courts.Among the institutions scrutinised by the president is Harvard University, which had $2.65bn (£1.96bn) in federal grants frozen. Trump has also tried to revoke Harvard's ability to enrol international students, though that move has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge while the matter is being heard in court.More than 1.1 million international students from over 210 countries were enrolled in US colleges in the 2023-24 school year, according to Open Doors, an organisation that collects data on foreign students.
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