U.S. will review social media for foreign student visa applications

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/19/g-s1-73572/us-resumes-visas-foreign-students-access-social-media

by BeetleB • 1 year ago

117 169 1 year ago

rcbdev• 1 year ago

I spent considerable time in the U.S. on a J visa, so did my partner.

We both agree that we would have not chosen to visit under the current visa regime, and I assume many others agree with our sentiment.

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

Universities in the US are currently advising students (F or J visa) to not travel out of US to avoid potential challenges at the port of re-entry.

duxup3• 1 year ago

Unfortunately that's the goal. Your call and I respect that, but the current administration doesn't care, they want folks who they determine have the wrong point of view out.

It's not just international students either, in their demand to Harvard the Trump administration demanded Harvard hire an outside group to survey Harvard staff and STUDENTS for "viewpoint diversity" and if they felt the diversity wasn't what the administration wanted, adjust staff and students to fit their view.

consumer4514• 1 year ago

Federal anti-wrongthink enforcement. Everything they accused the other political side of doing, but 100x, and actually occurring in reality.

Am I off-base here, or is this exactly what is happening?

saghm• 1 year ago

Unfortunately that's the goal. Your call and I respect that, but the current administration doesn't care, they want folks who they determine have the wrong point of view out.

I agree with you, but I also think it would be unfortunate to frame this as somehow the responsibility of those who would be suffering the risk to come here to combat this. As much as I'd love for people to come just to stick it to the current government, I honestly think it's probably a better idea for them to prioritize their own safety and security over trying to fight against it. The rest of the world doesn't owe it to us to fix our mess for us.

CGMthrowaway9• 1 year ago

I never thought screening visa applicants for threats to national security would be so controversial.

actionfromafar2• 1 year ago

It's just that "national security" apparently now is the same as "threatens the Presidents ego".

Arainach3• 1 year ago

This isn't about national security threats. It's about any excuse for racism and xenophobia.

Posting social media comments protesting the actions of Israel is not a national security threat but is something we've seen this administration invoke penalties for.

The hatred, bigotry, and raw short sightedness are horrifying. To the degree that America is "great" it is great because it was a place where great people from around the world wanted to come to and wanted to live in. Turning away students - the most likely source of new scientific and artistic greatness in the future - is throwing away any leadership we had and actively harming the country.

It is in fact harming national security if these brilliant minds study, live, and work in other countries.

somedude8952• 1 year ago

Turning away students...

Turning away troublemakers is a smart thing to do. There are more than enough talented people waiting in line. People who will not shout down professors, occupy university buildings and protest against the government of the country that received them as guests.

nitwit005• 1 year ago

It isn't. The problem is that everyone thinks they'll be screened for political views, because of prior statements by the white house.

aprilthird20218• 1 year ago

They will be. They tried to deport a foreign student for writing an article critical of Israel.

sailfast9• 1 year ago

This is not a hypothetical. Folks have already been deported just for having contrarian views to the administration that are well within bounds of a polite bar argument about politics.

mnhnthrow34• 1 year ago

"To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas will be instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to “public.”"

It leaves me with a lot of questions.

What even constitutes a social media profile? For how long do you have to mark it public? What if marking all your social media profiles public exposes you to harm? Is it acceptable to delete all your posts (that were previously _private_) before making a profile public, or to delete whole profiles, or would that desire for privacy be seen as concealing some threat? How is it known if there are non-public profiles? Would govt believe somebody who has no social media presence at all?

"screening visa applicants for threats" is a very simplistic summary of the situation. I think visa applicants are just gonna go eleswhere.

lbrito• 1 year ago

Welcome to America, where having a thought police is absolutely not against freedom of speech, while having the right to attend a literal Nazi march is a beautiful expression of Freedom of speech.

aprilthird20218• 1 year ago

You know exactly how dumb this policy is, how threatening to freedom of speech it is, and why we are doing it only specifically for college students.

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

Would only international students pose the risk to national security? Do you then agree that government should keep every profile under surveillance so no private profile exists for anybody? Also, who posts threats on social media?

CGMthrowaway9• 1 year ago

Don't they already? At least for foreign people.

sailfast9• 1 year ago

This is not about national security. We were already scanning social media profiles for that kind of stuff when folks applied for visas. This is arbitrary.

mvieira383• 1 year ago

The famously dangerous threats that are thoroughly documented college level students. Americans have commited the majority of terrorist attacks in their own country, especially if you count school shootings

CGMthrowaway9• 1 year ago

Not sure how we pivoted to "terror" from "national security," which is much broader, but since we are here:

School shootings are not typically classified as "terrorism" unless they are explicitly motivated by political, ideological or religious agendas.

Foreign-sponsored terrorist attacks, such as 9/11, San Bernardino shooting, Pulse nightclub shooting, etc result in significantly higher casualties, widespread fear and greater economic impact (in the $trillions). Foreign actors are typically more sophisticated, thus calling for enhanced screening. And their actions have further-reaching consequences such as the cost of wars and homeland security measures.

djeastm• 1 year ago

There's screening for terrorist ties and then there's screening for wrongthink, no?

BeetleB6• 1 year ago

It's the equivalent of:

"To apply for a visa, applicants need to give us (and the rest of the world) access to all email correspondence."

No one is complaining about screening for threats. It's how that's a problem.

CGMthrowaway9• 1 year ago

This already exists...border agents can require you to unlock your phone and other electronic devices, without a warrant or probable cause. Refusing means facing denial of entry

rhcom2• 1 year ago

Seems like this will further incentive young people to avoid social media and/or only use anonymous burners.

shadowgovt5• 1 year ago

Personal opinion: if people who live in China (a country with a much longer and clearer history of overt censorship) still talk about Winnie-the-Pooh, I doubt this change will really have the impact the administration hopes for.

matthewdgreen• 1 year ago

What they hope to do is limit free speech and political criticism in the United States. They're starting with the groups the law gives them easiest access to, and they're hoping to expand that group to include native citizens in the near future (see the actions on birthright citizenship.)

It's hard to argue that political speech has been a success in China, and we're going to end up a lot like China if we don't fight this with everything we have.

dontlaugh• 1 year ago

That’s more because censorship in China gets frequently exaggerated. Winnie the Pooh has never been censored, for example.

osti• 1 year ago

What I don't get is, education is one of US's big "exports", and basically easy money; so why try to kneecap that revenue stream?

moelf• 1 year ago

why give money to "woke" schools like Harvard?.... /s

Joel_Mckay• 1 year ago

Hardly a new political phenomena, and policies with known predictable outcomes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23X14HS4gLk

One must sympathize with the good folks at AMCHAM that will have to clean up the mess.

Have a wonderful day =)

aprilthird20218• 1 year ago

Because we voted to destroy our own economy to own libs

const_cast7• 1 year ago

Because ideology railroads economy. If you take a look at fascist regimes throughout history, you will undoubtedly get a feel for their cruelty. But what most people miss is their incompetence. They're self-destructive by nature. Emotionally-driven by their ideology.

There's a metro station in Bucharest, Romania that's noticeably smaller than the rest. It was built in secret by the workers. The administration didn't want it built at all - it was by the University, and they believed students should be forced to walk, lest they become lazy. Luckily, the workers had the foresight to build the station in secret for some unknown future date. Now, it's one of the most used stations in the Capital.

UncleMeat4• 1 year ago

Conservatives hate academia. They say this repeatedly and publicly. Their goal is to destroy the existing academic system and replace it with an ideological system focused on a particular set of right wing values.

The idea that academia makes money for the US, or brings in highly educated people to contribute to our economy, or produces scientific advancements that improve society is completely immaterial to the goal.

seydor• 1 year ago

inadvertedly the US might finally put an end to the plague that has been euphemistically called social media (they are actually heavily antisocial). Coupled with AI and fakes, i hope we are done with this pestilence for good.

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

This won't put an end to social media. It will only amplify posts/thoughts that are uncritical of the administration.

shadowgovt5• 1 year ago

Probably not. This mostly just tips the balance towards constraining what foreign students can say, and they are a tiny, tiny sliver of the criticism of the US online.

It's mostly about creating a climate of fear. This administration wants people who are vulnerable to shut up so they don't have to work so hard to shut people up. I don't doubt that they will move on to testing the waters on how to shut up citizens too; the paths for non-citizens are just more obvious (since the US government carved out clear delineations that indicate non-citizens don't enjoy Constitutional protections to allow them to be tortured after September 11).

somedude8952• 1 year ago

I've been thinking the same thing with AI. If IG and Tiktok become so flooded with AI slop that people lose interest in "social" media altogether, I think that's a net positive for society and general mental health.

a5c11• 1 year ago

Hopefully. I feel like people actually stopped socialising after the social media breakthrough. It's harder to ask friends out for a coffee or beer because "nah, we can just talk online". We have locked ourselves in virtual communities where we have a false feeling of importance. Boards were the last acceptable form of socialising, but it was different, it was aimed at exchanging knowledge and common interest, not replacing real interactions completely.

daft_pink• 1 year ago

how would they know if it’s public or not?

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

The requirement forces you to keep the profile public when appearing for the interview at least.

timc3• 1 year ago

They make applicants list the accounts and then check them.

mynameismon• 1 year ago

And what if you don't list your social media accounts?

duxup3• 1 year ago

Presumably if they find out that you have an account you didn't share, you're out.

qwertox• 1 year ago

They would check. And if it turns out you have another email you didn't report, which is somehow linked to some other digital asset of yours, and therefore traceable, then you'd have a bigger problem.

sailfast9• 1 year ago

They will not spend that much money looking at a Visa applicant. Shit, we barely spend that much time granting high security clearances.

siliconc0w• 1 year ago

Requiring "public" is wild

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

International students barely have any power to do any harm in the strongest country in the world. Posting some random criticism doesn't change a thing. Feels like a massive powertrip from the administration to attack the weakest, since they legitimately fall short of addressing anything of real significance in general.

rurban• 1 year ago

So you missed out in your history lessons. It were always the students and philosophers/authors who were critical in regime unrest. Nowadays you can add filmmakers, but you can easily control them with budgets.

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

I didn't say students couldn't be critical of the regime; I said that doesn't change anything when foreigners do it in the US, supposedly a strong country in the world. Well, the citizens who vote cannot change much here, what do those without voting rights could?

jmbwell• 1 year ago

Looking at public profiles is one thing… requiring people to switch their profiles to “Public” so they can be looked at seems like another thing. How is that even enforceable? What if they find some profile that happens to have my name and is private, but isn’t mine? To say nothing of the legitimate reasons to have a private profile in the first place. And who defines “hostility?”

It’s hard not to see this as another “freedom of speech (but only for the kind of speech we like)” situation.

CGMthrowaway9• 1 year ago

Does/should one have freedom of speech if they are a non-citizen and not in the US yet? If so, should the US police around the world to ensure that?

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

But aren't they applying to be a student in the US? Who is US to decide if a non-citizen can or cannot have freedom of speech? What a tone deaf comment was that!

mitthrowaway23• 1 year ago

This strikes me as a false dichotomy. There is a solar-system-sized gap between "my country should not impose speech restrictions on foreign visitors" and "my country should police every other country to ensure that they do not impose speech restrictions upon their own citizens within their borders". Was anybody seriously proposing that?

OkayPhysicist4• 1 year ago

Yes, they do. Full stop. The constitution is not ambiguous about this, at all. The Bill of Rights starts, right out of the gates with:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. "

Note the wording. It's not in the business of granting rights (those are natural and inalienable). It restricts Congress's ability to pass any law that infringes upon those rights.

croes• 1 year ago

You are mixing two things. Rights in the US jurisdiction and outside of it

rendaw• 1 year ago

Yeah, I wonder how this is checked/enforced as well, it doesn't seem trivial and especially in the time at entry. Is it something they take action over retroactively, after correlating records from multiple companies?

potato37328422• 1 year ago

Like everything else the government does they'll take you at your word and scrutinize it later looking for an excuse to screw you if you do anything they don't like.

ourmandave• 1 year ago

Wouldn't be surprised if there was an announcement of a Trump branded social media scrubbing service soon.

And DOGE will have access to the client list so they can share it with ICE.

throwaway3239295• 1 year ago

As terrible as the current US policy system is, a really good sanity check for any policies like this is "would you be able do this in Japan":

If you drove a car drunk and it turned into a police chase, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?

If you snuck across the Japanese border with intention to live there undocumented, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?

If you posted social media saying you wanted to overthrow the Japanese government, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?

Literally anything involving a gun and a crime, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?

If the answer is "no", you're probably feeding too heavily from ideology. The reality is that most countries, including far more stable and peaceful countries than the US will ever be, are far less tolerant of crossing borders illegally, drunk driving, gun offenses, etc. With their own citizens, to say nothing of foreigners on visas.

shadowgovt5• 1 year ago

Why? The United States is not Japan. The United States has built its national identity on exceptionalism; regression-to-the-mean reasoning is flawed in that context.

When the United States was founded, the average nation was some flavor of monarchy.

esseph• 1 year ago

Sounds like we're regressing-to-the-mean, then.

MinimalAction8• 1 year ago

There have been cases of speed-tickets turned into deportation notices for international students. Would Japan do that too for a speed limit violation?

throwaway3239295• 1 year ago

Great question: Going over 30KM/h over the speed limit in a non-highway zone (red ticket) in Japan is a criminal offense: it goes to court, there is a criminal record filed, they can suspend or revoke your driver’s license, and it can absolutely cause a VISA to be revoked or not renewed.

And unlike in the US they actually do enforce the laws there.

tsimionescu• 1 year ago

I would bet you anything you want that posting that you don't like the Israeli government's genocide in Gaza (a major topic for this type of scrutiny) will get you neither deported nor even turned back at the border in Japan.

foxglacier6• 1 year ago

It probably won't in America either though. You're making up a strawman.

nemomarx• 1 year ago

Isn't Japan somewhat famously hard to immigrate too? This kinda smuggles in the premise that their state of affairs is desirable and normal.

somanyphotons• 1 year ago

Sure, replace Japan with New Zealand then

FirmwareBurner5• 1 year ago

Isn't Japan somewhat famously hard to immigrate too?

Isn't Japan famously safe and clean?

barbazoo• 1 year ago

If you posted social media saying you wanted to overthrow the Japanese government, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?

You're cherry picking and assuming they only look for obvious criminal offences like "government overthrow" and not dissenting views, criticism of the people in power, views against the economic order, etc. For some of those I can imagine the answer being "no" in Japan and "Yes" in the US.

mvieira383• 1 year ago

Look at the guy's profile, they might actually be on a marketing team for Trump. Literally everything is talking points and tailor-made to shift perception.

sailfast9• 1 year ago

Why would I desire a regression to the mean as a citizen? Freedom of expression is critical, and there is no guidance at ALL about what constitutes offending speech vs. what does not. Arbitrary denial of entry is not something that should be celebrated.

grafmax4• 1 year ago

If you posted social media saying you wanted to overthrow the Japanese government, would Japan be okay with it or would they put you in jail and/or deport you?

This administration already considers protesting genocide a “threat to national security”. It has a well documented history of retaliating against protected speech. This latest policy is authoritarian retaliation against of free speech, plain and simple. Comparing the policy of a liberal democracy like Japan to contemporary US authoritarianism is truly disingenuous.

mvieira383• 1 year ago

Wow this shows some really nice propagandist accumen, I wonder if it's literally a paid employee or something, judging by the comment history. You first rope in drunk drivers and illegal immigrants with the point being discussed (legal students) and then you exaggerate, saying people might be threatening domestic terrorism on social media. How cool!

You fail to address, though, that 1- the US is requiring social media accounts to be set to public, forcing people's hand into being labled as aggitators. 2- stuff that might be of academic interest is notoriously targeted by this admin, like any research being done on Israel/Palestine, any research being done on ESG, not to mention the more overt leftist themes (pro-LGBT, abortion, etc academics). This change is an easy way for the admin to target this type of research

throwaway3239295• 1 year ago

This is the second time in this thread you have accused me of being a paid Trump employee for having a different opinion than you.

Atreiden• 1 year ago

None of these things apply to the average exchange student coming to the country legally to study at our universities.

insane_dreamer• 1 year ago

Those are the wrong questions.

The US was built on immigration; Japan never was -- it has always been anti-immigration. There's no Statue of Liberty with "give me your huddled masses" inscription.

These harsh actions go against the principles on which the US was founded and built. Similar actions in Japan do not go against the principles on which Japan was founded.

A separate conversation, but immigration -- legal or illegal -- greatly benefits the US economically. While conversely, Japan's immigration policies are greatly hurting its economy as its population declines.

I'm not pro- illegal immigration. I'm for making legal immigration much more accessible so that you don't end up with millions of illegal immigrants.

duxup3• 1 year ago

Thought police, and you're required to make those thoughts available to the police.

aprilthird20218• 1 year ago

Why do we shoot our own selves in the knees for Israel?

actionfromafar2• 1 year ago

It's not for Israel, that's just a proxy - a shibboleth - if you are against Israel you are either a communist, libtard or muslim, so not welcome. It's Trump shooting some knees to stay in power.

Edit: I know. It's just a convenient foil!

msgodel• 1 year ago

I think if you actually talked to Trump supporters you'd find we're not particular fans of Israel either.

yongjik• 1 year ago

MAGA hates higher education, so they will kneecap higher education. Israel is just a convenient excuse.

sailfast9• 1 year ago

While freedom of speech is obviously a right of citizens, I would argue that in order to preserve that right the US should be extending it to those coming into the country - outside of currently excepted threat settings of course.

Saying you don’t like the President should not deny you entry to the United States. This is, straight up, horse shit and I do not approve of it nor do I believe it should be permitted by the executive.

Tadpole91812• 1 year ago

Argue? It's not at all ambiguous in the Bill of Rights that it does apply to non-citizens.

sailfast9• 1 year ago

You’re right! Yet here I am seeing non-citizens treated like dog-sh!t and having those rights revoked like it’s just fine - and the Supreme Court seems to agree. But you’re right - I shouldn’t just cede the point. That’s what got us here in the first place.

sreejithr• 1 year ago

Nowadays there are "paid" protestors and social media personalities who seem to spread misinformation for money. Information warfare being a thing now, I think this was a quite expected move from US immigration. I'm only surprised they told this out loud.

BeetleB6• 1 year ago

Nowadays there are "paid" protestors and social media personalities who seem to spread misinformation for money.

Most of whom are Chinese.[1] Somehow I don't think they plan to go after them.

[1] Very obvious during the Hong Kong protests.

hearsathought2• 1 year ago

Yes. All these protestors are "chinese". Good one.

condensedcrab• 1 year ago

The US is squandering its huge advantage in higher ed - every country has its top schools, but the US academic scene has so many top-tier schools/universities for research. Visa issues for international students have always been a pain - great talent for graduate schools, but with so many added shenanigans that were annoying at best and a major hurdle to next steps (postdoc, jobs, etc.) at worst.

Seems like instead of making it easier for smart and talented people to come to US, we are making it harder... cause terrorism?

Tadpole91812• 1 year ago

Terrorism? You mean being a demographic disproportionately critical of Israel?

foxglacier6• 1 year ago

Hasn't America required visa applicants to tell them their social media account names for years? Seems like this change is just making those public, which is invasive, sure, but so was the original way which somehow nobody seems to mind anymore. This will just become the new normal too.

sailfast9• 1 year ago

Sure, and shipping those same folks to Alligator Alcatraz will become the “new normal”. And eventually we’ll just start killing them for sport as the new normal. I don’t mean to be that guy, but Hitler also was just a “new normal” guy trying to remove some WWI debt and make Germany great again.

foxglacier6• 1 year ago

You missed the part about nobody seeming to mind anymore. We also don't mind having to apply for a visa in the first place instead of just buying a ticket on a ship and turning up at the port. Are visas Hitler too?

mamonster• 1 year ago

The part that makes me feel really uneasy about this is that the whole "pose a threat to U.S. national security" schtick is essentially due to anti-Israel/pro-Palestine protests. It's basically running cover for Israel in the most (in my opinion) counter-productive way possible.

xnx• 1 year ago

Not a smart way to treat "customers" that often pay full-fare for college. Foreign student tuition payments can fund scholarships for a lot of US students. (Though exploding university administrative bloat might be devouring all funds available.)

ChrisArchitect• 1 year ago

News from June.

Lots of discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44314054

scarecrowbob• 1 year ago

What blows my mind is that the US gov (of which I am a "citizen") considers my opinions to "pose a threat to U.S. national security".

The idea that they'd like kick me out of my own damn country for thinking what I think about them is worrisome, at best.

If I can only think what I think because I have some special status as a citizen, and "what I think" has been proscribed as illegitimate by the government, it feels a bit chilling.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK• 1 year ago

What's the problem to create an account on Truth Social and buy a maga hat before presenting yourself to a CBP officer?

U.S. will review social media for foreign student visa applications

Related Stories