Trump administration restarting student visa appointments, State Dept official says

Hindustan Times

5 hours ago

WASHINGTON -The United States is directing its U.S. diplomatic missions abroad to resume student visa applications, but is now requiring applicants to make their social media profiles public for vetting purposes, a senior State Department official said 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.
On Wednesday, a State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said under new guidance, consular officers will conduct a "comprehensive and thorough vetting" of all student and exchange visitor applicants.
"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.
Trump's critics have said that 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.