The State Department is restarting interviews for student visas and installing stricter social media guidelines, including a requirement that all applicants have their accounts set to public to be scrutinized for hostility toward the United States, according to a State Department cable sent to embassies and consulates Wednesday and obtained by The Washington Post.
The move comes after foreign students’ visa appointments were suspended last month in what U.S. officials described as part of a campaign against universities that allegedly fostered antisemitism and other national security concerns. The Trump administration also singled out Harvard University for additional screening for visas last month, describing it as a pilot program for wider measures.
The new vetting procedures will apply to all foreign nationals who apply for F visas, which are primarily for academic students, as well as M visas for vocational students and J visas that are designed for educational and cultural exchanges. It will apply to all student visas, regardless of the institution of study.
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Education advocates said they are concerned that the new vetting procedures will send a unwelcoming message to potential international students in the United States. Some worried the measures could mean not just vetting on social media grounds, but also a political litmus test for applicants.
“I hope it will not discourage international students from coming here to the United States, but also that it won’t be applied in a way that we’re going to see an enormous uptick in denials,” said Sarah Spreitzer, chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education.
The cable, signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, said that the vetting will require reviews of applicants’ “online presence” and that the new procedures will take effect in five business days.
As staff members examine students’ profiles, the cable instructed, they must look to “identify applicants who bear hostile attitudes toward our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles; who advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to U.S. national security; or who perpetrate unlawful antisemitic harassment or violence.”
Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan think tank, said it remained unclear how broadly or narrowly the rules would be interpreted.
“I don’t think any American would want to be judged by their worst tweet,” Anderson said.
While a narrower interpretation of the new guidelines may be less problematic, a broader one could result in the government denying visas to students who deserve them, Anderson added. Regardless, the policy represents a shift in how the U.S. views visa applications, he said.
“Historically, we’ve not been critiquing people’s views before they come here,” he said.
The State Department said in a written statement that U.S. citizens expect their government to make their country safer, particularly when it relates to the visa system.
“Secretary Rubio is helping to make America and its universities safer while bringing the State Department into the 21st century,” the State Department said.
As justification for the expanded vetting, the cable cited two executive orders from President Donald Trump, one focused on preventing hostile foreign actors from entering the country and one intended to combat antisemitism.
The cable also said it is important to protect American institutions of higher education from those who would “steal technical information, exploit U.S. research and development, and spread false information for political or other reasons.”
Installing the new procedure for applicants to all U.S. colleges and universities will place a serious burden on consulates, according to the cable and several State Department employees, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
One State department official noted that the agency issued 446,000 student visas in 2023. “If everyone has to now have their social media scrubbed for derogatory information? Officers do not have that time.”
The cable acknowledged the potentially heavy demands being made on staff members’ time. Consular staff members, “should consider overall scheduling volume and the resource demands of appropriate vetting,” the cable said. They might need to schedule fewer student and exchange visa cases than they did previously, it added.
The cable suggested that State Department officials should request that applicants make public and accessible all portions of their social media accounts and should penalize them if they refuse.
If portions of accounts remain “set to ‘private’ or otherwise limited, you should treat the case as any other where an applicant fails to provide certain information on request,” the cable stated. It added, in a bolded sentence, “You must consider whether such failure reflects evasiveness or otherwise calls into question the applicant’s credibility.”
The new social media vetting guidelines will affect not only new applicants but also those whose cases are currently in progress, according to the cable. That includes applicants who have not yet been interviewed and those whose interviews have been waived.
It also includes applicants who have already been interviewed and “are otherwise approvable” but have not yet been finalized as approved.
In all of those cases, consular officers “should request that applicants make their social media accounts ‘public,’ then conduct the vetting described in this cable,” the cable said. It directed the officers to refuse the case or, if needed, call the applicant back for a follow-up interview if potentially derogatory information is found.
Jill Allen Murray, deputy executive director for public policy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators, expressed relief that the visa interviews will restart but said the weeks-long pause hurt international students and college communities that rely on their presence. She noted that international students and scholars are already among the most-tracked visitors to the United States.
“At this critical time of year, the administration should move quickly to both expedite and effectively screen international students and scholars, allowing them to contribute to U.S. communities and their local economies,” she said.