US State Department has informed their embassies and consulates they must vet student visa applicants for hostile attitudes towards our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.
U.S. President Donald Trump had earlier directed American embassies around the world to halt new appointments for student visa interviews.
According to reports the Trump administration’s halts on new student visa appointments are part of efforts to increase social media background checks for applicants.
The new guidance sent to US diplomatic reveals vetting will look at student and exchange visa applicants’ entire online presence.
Applicants will be asked to set their social media profiles to the public as part of the new vetting, and the cable notes that “limited access to, or visibility of, online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity.”
According to the cable the latest guidance “requires consular officers to conduct a comprehensive and thorough vetting of all FMJ applicants, including online presence, to identify applicants who bear hostile attitudes towards our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles; who advocate for, aid, or support designated terrorists and other threats to U.S. national security; or who perpetrate unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence,”
“A review of the applicant’s entire online presence – not just social media activity – using any appropriate search engines or other online resources,” including “a check of any databases to which the consular section has access.”
The guidance did not give details of what constitutes “hostile attitudes towards our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.”
It noted, “The FBI has long warned that foreign powers seek access to American higher education institutions to, among other things, steal technical information, exploit U.S. research and development, and spread false information for political or other reasons.”
“During the vetting, you simply are looking for any potentially derogatory information about the applicant”.
Even if the “inconsistencies or potentially derogatory information” does not rise to the level of ineligibility for a visa, “you must consider whether they undermine the applicant’s credibility or suggest that the applicant will not respect the terms of his admission to the United States.”
“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 and, if so, whether such activity is consistent with the non-immigrant visa classification they seek. As Secretary Rubio has said, we do not seek to import activists who will disrupt and undermine scholarly activity at U.S. universities.”
