Trump administration orders social media screening of H-1B, H-4 visa applicants from Dec 15

The Trump administration has announced enhanced screening measures for H-1B and H-4 visa applicants, requiring checks of their social media profiles. Starting December 15, the US State Department will review the online presence of applicants and their dependents.

New York/Washington: The Trump administration will begin on Monday enhanced screening and vetting of H-1B and its dependent H-4 visa applicants, including checks of their social media profiles.

In a new order, the State Department said that from December 15, a review of the online presence for all H-1B applicants and their dependents will be conducted.

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Students and exchange visitors were already subject to this review and now the department has expanded this requirement to vet social media profiles to include H1-B applicants and their dependents on H-4 visas.

“To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for H-1B and their dependents (H-4), F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas are instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to ‘public’,” the State Department said.

The F, M and J visas are used by students and exchange visitors to come to the US.

Several H-1B visa holders have had their interviews in India rescheduled in the wake of this new guideline to vet their social media profiles.

Underscoring that a US visa is a privilege, not a right, the State Department said that it uses all available information in visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are inadmissible to the US, including those who pose a threat to the country’s national security or public safety.

“We conduct thorough vetting of all visa applicants, including online presence review of all student and exchange visitor applicants in the F, M, and J nonimmigrant classifications,” it said, underlining that every visa adjudication is a national security decision.

The new directive is the latest move by the Trump administration in its increased crackdown on immigration.