In yet another twist for foreign students hoping to study in the U.S., the State Department says it will resume processing student and visiting scholar visa applications for foreign citizens but plans to review their social media accounts as part of the process.
All students applying for a visa will need to set their social media profiles to “public,” according to a post Wednesday on the State Department’s website, saying that the additional screening was part of the vetting process to exclude applicants who “pose a threat to U.S. national security.”
The State Department said failure to allow access to social profiles could be grounds for rejection, and that consular officers have been instructed to look for any indication of “hostility” toward the U.S. or its people, although it did not provide further details of what exactly that could mean.
Read more at NPR.
