The US Embassy in India has introduced that candidates for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas ought to make their social media accounts public.
The brand new guideline seeks to assist officers confirm the id and eligibility of candidates beneath U.S. legislation. The U.S. Embassy stated each visa software overview is a “nationwide safety choice.”
“Efficient instantly, all people making use of for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to regulate the privateness settings on all of their private social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting essential to ascertain their id and admissibility to the USA,” the embassy stated in a submit on X.
Underneath the brand new guidelines, Indian college students and others planning to pursue academia or enroll in vocational or alternate applications are mandated to make sure that their social media profiles are set to public earlier than submitting their visa purposes. A refusal to set the accounts to “public” may very well be grounds for rejection.
The embassy famous that the USA has required visa candidates to supply social media identifiers on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa software varieties since 2019.
It additionally stated each piece of “out there” data is used as a part of its visa screening and vetting to determine visa candidates who’re deemed inadmissible to the nation, together with those that pose a risk to its nationwide safety. Nevertheless, it didn’t spell out what these steps would search for.
Comparable directives have been issued by different U.S. embassies internationally, with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico stating that visa candidates should listing all social media usernames or handles of each platform they’ve used from the final 5 years.
The event comes weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration ordered embassies all over the world to cease scheduling appointments for pupil visas to increase social media vetting of such candidates. Final week, the U.S. Division of State stated it is resuming the method, however with new measures that require candidates to unlock their social media accounts for presidency overview.
“The US should be vigilant through the visa issuance course of to make sure that these making use of for admission into the USA don’t intend to hurt People and our nationwide pursuits, and that every one candidates credibly set up their eligibility for the visa sought, together with that they intend to have interaction in actions in step with the phrases for his or her admission,” the division stated.
