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The United States on Wednesday said that it will restart its student visa appointment process soon but added that all applicants will need to unlock their social media profiles to allow them to be reviewed.
The Donald Trump administration had on May 27 told its embassies worldwide to pause scheduling student visa interviews until “further guidance” was issued.
On Wednesday, the US Department of State said that new norms had been framed under which the government would conduct a “comprehensive and thorough vetting, including online presence,” of all student and exchange visitor applicants.
To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for student and exchange visitor visas would be told to adjust their privacy settings on all their social media profiles to “public”, it said.
The Department of State said that every visa adjudication is a national security decision and added that authorities must be vigilant in ensuring that those applying for visas “do not intend to harm Americans and our national interests”.
It said that all applicants must credibly establish their eligibility for the visa sought, “including that they intend to engage in activities consistent with the terms for their admission”.
US consular officers have been told to examine applications to identify those who “bear hostile attitudes toward our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles”, Reuters reported, quoting an internal Department of State document from Wednesday.
The document, sent by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, instructed officials to look for “applicants who demonstrate a history of political activism, especially when it is associated with violence”, Reuters reported.
In cases involving such applicants, officers must consider the likelihood that they would continue such activities in the US as well, the document said.
Consular officers should remind applicants that limiting access to their online presence could be seen as an effort to hide certain activities, the Department of State said.
The US had paused scheduling student visa interviews amid Trump’s clash with top universities in the country, including Harvard, which he has accused of promoting Left-wing views, enabling antisemitism on campus and supporting discriminatory admissions policies.
His administration has taken aggressive actions to try to enforce its demands, including freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in university funding, revoking visas and attempting to deport international students. However, many of these measures have been blocked by the courts.
More than 1.1 million international students were enrolled in US universities during the academic year 2023-’24, accounting for 6% of those pursuing higher education in the country, according to US-based non-governmental organisation Institute of International Education.
India sent the highest number of students, followed by China, it added.
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This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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