Trump okays resumption of student visa appointments, stricter social media vetting
Reprieve may have come the way of foreign students as the President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday, directed the resumption of student visa appointments as its foreign missions.
However, the administration has also ordered a stricter social media vetting targeting applicants who may be hostile towards the United States, according to an internal State Department cable reviewed by Reuters.
Recall that in May, the Trump administration ordered its missions abroad to stop scheduling new appointments for foreign student and exchange visitor visa applicants, saying the State Department was set to expand social media vetting of foreign students.
U.S. consular officers are now 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.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio had said updated guidance would be released once a review was completed.
The June 18 dated cable, which was sent by Rubio and sent to all U.S. diplomatic missions, 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.”
The cable, which was first reported by Free Press, also authorized the consular officers to ask the applicants to make all of their social media accounts public.
“Remind the applicant that limited access to….online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity,” the cable said.
The move follows the administration’s enhanced vetting measures last month for visa applicants looking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose, in what a separate State Department cable said would serve as a pilot program for wider expanded screening.
ONLINE PRESENCE
The new vetting process should include a review of the applicant’s entire online presence and not just social media activity, the cable said, urging the officers to use any “appropriate search engines or other online resources.”
During the vetting, the directive asks officers to look for any potentially derogatory information about the applicant. – REUTERS
