US State Division cable reveals that social media posts may result in screening of visa candidates for nationwide safety threats.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered the State Division to evaluate the social media accounts of overseas candidates for United States visas who’ve visited the Gaza Strip prior to now 18 years, in keeping with an inner cable seen by the Reuters information company.
The cable covers all immigrant and non-immigrant US visas – together with college students and vacationers – of people that have spent “any size of time in an official or diplomatic capability” in Gaza on or after January 1, 2007.
Staff and volunteers at nongovernmental organisations may even be subjected to US screening.
If the social media evaluate uncovers any “potential derogatory info regarding safety points” then the US visa utility can be submitted for an interagency investigation into whether or not the applicant may pose a nationwide safety threat, in keeping with the cable.
The cable was signed by Rubio, who beforehand instructed the media that his workplace has revoked greater than 300 visas because the begin of this yr. They embody pupil visa holders who’ve criticised Israel’s conflict on Gaza, despite the fact that the US Structure protects the liberty of speech of anybody within the US no matter their visa standing.
The Trump administration has beforehand mentioned the scholars’ actions pose a risk to US overseas coverage. The president has additionally taken the combat to universities themselves, which have been the positioning of main protests because the conflict in Gaza started on October 7, 2023.
Trump’s newest battle is with Harvard College. The president froze greater than $2bn in federal funding to the college, after it refused to make coverage modifications requested by his administration.
They embody repealing affirmative motion within the admissions course of, screening for college kids who could also be “hostile to American values and establishments”, and addressing anti-Semitism on campus.
Earlier this week, the Division of Homeland Safety mentioned Harvard could also be ineligible to host worldwide college students over its “radical ideology” and supporting “overseas visa-holding rioters and school [who] have spewed anti-semitic hate”.
