Rubio paused visa interviews final month whereas the State Division created guidelines for the social media screenings.
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The U.S. State Division is rolling out sweeping new guidelines for vetting scholar visa candidates utilizing their social media presence, in line with Politico.
The brand new course of will embody screening for “any indications of hostility in the direction of the residents, tradition, authorities, establishments or founding rules of the US,” in line with an inside State Division cable.
Division officers will even search for posts that sign “advocacy for, assist or assist for international terrorists and different threats to nationwide safety” and “assist for antisemitic harassment or violence,” particularly citing assist for Hamas—a cost generally levied towards scholar protesters advocating for Palestinian rights—as grounds for rejection. The cable additionally directs officers to cull candidates who “show a historical past of political activism.”
The information comes just a few weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all scholar visa interviews to be able to implement a brand new screening coverage specializing in college students’ on-line exercise. The Related Press reported that the division rescinded the pause, however candidates who don’t enable the federal government to evaluation their social media accounts may very well be rejected.
The cable is the Trump administration’s newest effort to curtail the movement of worldwide college students to the U.S., as tens of hundreds of international college students await approval of their visas after months of delays and with solely weeks till the beginning of the autumn semester.
State Division spokespeople didn’t reply to a listing of questions from Inside Larger Ed in time for publication.
