Students from around the world who hope to study in the United States are winding down much of their online activity, unfollowing celebrities and politicians, asking friends and family to stop sending news links and scouring their own internet presence for posts that carry even the faintest whiff of hot-button politics.
International student visa applicants told The Washington Post that the sanitization is driven by fear that a single “like” or meme, if taken the wrong way, could derail years of hard work, should it run afoul of sweeping new visa-vetting procedures under President Donald Trump. Tech companies have also been marketing account-scrubbing and screening tools to foreign visitors.
The State Department announced “expanded screening” last month, directing applicants to set their social media accounts to “public.” An internal State Department cable obtained by The Post instructed consular officers to find “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles of the United States.”
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“Anything that could be seen as having a side, I unfollowed. I unfollowed AOC, Kamala, Biden, Obama, everyone,” said Madeline, a visa applicant. She and other students interviewed for this story spoke on the condition that their surnames or full names be withheld, for fear of derailing their visa eligibility.
“It seems very dystopian,” she said.
One applicant said he “went and unliked all [of Kamala Harris’s] posts from five months past.” Another student said that as a precaution, they unfollowed people with the Palestinian flag or watermelon emoji, a pro-Palestinian symbol, in their Instagram bios.
The new rule applies to visa applicants for academic, vocational and exchange programs in the United States. Last year, more than 1 million international students studied here.
“This is a commonsense policy,” a senior State Department official said in response to a request for more details on the vetting system. Officials are looking for evidence of “a potential threat to our national security like expressing support for terrorism and hostility towards Americans and our way of life,” the official said.
“Applying for a visa is voluntary, and individuals are free to decide whether to pursue travel to the United States,” the department said.
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‘Founding principles’
Some applicants said they found their precautions – including for fear of appearing to diverge from “founding principles of the United States” – at odds with the impulses that made them want to study there in the first place.
“Surely the founding principles are, you know, being able to speak up,” said a visa applicant interested in human rights.
Unsure how broadly the officers would interpret the vetting guidance, the applicant took what he called “the cautious approach.” He has taken down posts beginning in 2007 and unfollowed Instagram accounts with Arabic names, even cinema groups. This month, he came across an Instagram reel of charity work in Afghanistan: “This is going to sound so silly, but I liked it then unliked it,” he said.
Faced with “irrational guidance, your response is irrational,” the applicant said.
One international student said he took down a meme saying “I want to punch a wall” that he posted after learning of a temporary issue with his dance major credits, in case immigration officials flagged that as violent, he said.
On Reddit, nervous prospective applicants have congregated to compare notes, asking: “Is it best to deactivate socials?” Some urged and others warned against the approach, cautioning that it could raise rather than allay suspicion. The State Department told consulates to remind applicants that “limited access to, or visibility of, online presence could be construed as an effort to evade or hide certain activity.”
Caio Fernandes, a master’s student of comparative literature in Austria, said nearly all the questions at his June 25 visa interview “were all about the fact that I don’t have social media.” His visa application for a semester exchange program was rejected under a broad denial of failing to prove “nonimmigrant intent.”
“I think that at the end of the day basically she thought that I was hiding something,” Fernandes said.
“The embassy has a very broad discretion to say yay or nay,” said U.S. immigration lawyer Richard Herman. “They don’t tell you all the reasons why they’re denying you. There’s no appeal process” and very little oversight.
Still, Herman said, he advises students: “Take a deep breath. Don’t start deleting accounts.”
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Pay to scrub
The State Department cable instructs consular officers to vet applicants to “the maximum extent possible,” including a review of their “entire online presence – not just social media.” Now, tech companies focused on data deletion and online screening are seizing the moment to advertise their services to international students.
One company, Phyllo, markets its AI social screening tool with the slogan: “Your US Journey Shouldn’t End Because of an Old Post.” It trawls clients’ accounts to determine “content risk” on a graphic barometer, assessing for elements including “religious extremism,” “political content,” and “illegal immigration advocacy.”
Redact.dev, which helps users mass-delete posts across social platforms, prodded visa applicants a day after the new guidance: “Now is the time to audit your online presence for outdated opinions, overly political takes.”
The level of concern over political speech is new, said Dan Saltman, CEO and founder of Redact.dev. The company has been growing 15 percent month over month this year, including with users in East Asia, he said.
The expanded visa screening comes amid a Trump administration-driven crackdown on pro-Palestinian campus activism, including among international students already in the United States.
The State Department cable asks officers to “consider the likelihood” that applicants who “demonstrate a history of political activism” would “continue such activity,” and whether that would undermine scholarly activities. It said to pay special attention to activism associated with violence or ineligible views or activity, which include antisemitic harassment and support for terrorists.
“I would repost so many things” on the war in the Gaza Strip, said applicant Madeline. “On Instagram, my stories would be full of posts all day long.” But during the visa process, she told her friends that “from now on, I’m not talking about anything political.”
An incoming master’s student from India was one of the 76 million Instagram followers of Gigi Hadid, a supermodel of Palestinian descent who has expressed support for Palestinians. “She’s such a great model,” the student said. “I’m just left wondering, ‘Should I even follow her?’ Will me following her amount to me supporting a certain faction in a war and would that be, like, the reason for my visa getting rejected?”
The student has made her online personality “bland,” she said. “Your self-expression is completely restrained.”
Juliano, an incoming exchange student, wondered what happened to people who had been posting on Reddit or Twitter for decades: “What happens if you, for example, change your mind about things that you thought in the past? How will that be judged?”