\n<\/p>\n
Rubio paused visa interviews last month while the State Department created rules for the social media screenings.<\/p>\n
John McDonnell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The U.S. State Department is rolling out sweeping new rules for vetting student visa applicants using their social media presence, according to Politico<\/em>.<\/p>\n The new process will include screening for \u201cany indications of hostility towards the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States,\u201d according to an internal State Department cable.\u00a0<\/p>\n Department officials will also look for posts that signal \u201cadvocacy for, aid or support for foreign terrorists and other threats to national security\u201d and \u201csupport for antisemitic harassment or violence,\u201d specifically citing support for Hamas\u2014a charge commonly levied against student protesters advocating for Palestinian rights\u2014as grounds for rejection. The cable also directs officials to cull applicants who \u201cdemonstrate a history of political activism.\u201d<\/p>\n The news comes a few weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio paused all student visa interviews in order to implement a new screening policy focusing on students\u2019 online activity. The Associated Press reported that the department rescinded the pause, but applicants who don\u2019t allow the government to review their social media accounts could be rejected.<\/p>\n The cable is the Trump administration\u2019s latest effort to curtail the flow of international students to the U.S., as tens of thousands of foreign students await approval of their visas after months of delays and with only weeks until the start of the fall semester.\u00a0<\/p>\n State Department spokespeople did not respond to a list of questions from Inside Higher Ed <\/em>in time for publication.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rubio paused visa interviews last month while the State Department created rules for the social media screenings. John McDonnell\/Getty Images The U.S. State Department is rolling out sweeping new rules for vetting student visa applicants using their social media presence, according to Politico. The new process will include screening for \u201cany indications of hostility towards<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[203,200,205,201,204,199,202],"class_list":{"0":"post-8699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-applicants","9":"tag-department","10":"tag-media","11":"tag-screening","12":"tag-social","13":"tag-state","14":"tag-visa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}