State Dept. has new guidelines for vetting student visa applicants' social media

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How pupil visa decisions are made

What determines who gets a pupil visa? Former DHS authoritative explains the vetting process 05:31

The State Department issued caller guidelines Wednesday for much extended societal media vetting of each applicants for planetary pupil visas and speech visitant visas, instructing consular officers to look for signs of "hostility" toward the United States.

Applicants volition beryllium asked to acceptable each of their societal media accounts to "public," and volition beryllium notified that immoderate nonaccomplishment to bash truthful could beryllium seen arsenic evasive.

U.S. officials reviewing applications person been told to look for "any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, oregon founding principles of the United States."

A elder State Department authoritative said that the caller vetting guidelines are portion of an effort to "ensure we are decently screening each azygous idiosyncratic attempting to sojourn our country" and to marque the U.S. and its universities safer.

The authoritative said that consular posts could resume scheduling exertion interviews, which had been temporarily suspended arsenic the State Department prepared stricter societal media vetting.

Late past month, the State Department said successful a cable that it was readying to grow societal media screening and vetting for planetary pupil visa applications. This followed an announcement successful April that Citizenship and Immigration Services would beryllium taking into relationship "antisemitic enactment connected societal media" arsenic "grounds for denying migration payment requests." 

As a result, counselors who enactment with overseas students anxious to be assemblage successful the U.S. had already begun advising them to purge their societal media accounts of posts that could pull the attraction of State Department officials.

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