American Visas Set to Get Longer
This move follows reports that the Donald Trump administration has instructed all US embassies and consular sections to pause the scheduling of new interviews for student and foreign exchange visa applicants

New Delhi: American visas will take longer now as the US State Department has ordered all its embassies to screen the social media posts of applicants, particularly students, before allowing them in. The US government has said it will use all tools available to do a background check of all those who want to come into the country. This includes the screening of social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Snapchat, etc, from 2019.
This comes as the Trump administration has asked all US embassies and consulates to pause scheduling of new interviews for student visa and foreign exchange applicants as it is considering the social media vetting of foreigners looking to study in America. The step is a follow up of the crackdown on some US universities like Harvard. The student profiling comes as the Trump administration cracks down on pro-Palestine voices and anti-Semitism on university campuses. It is not clear if posting pro-Palestine posts or opposing Israel’s action on Gaza alone will be monitored.
Confirming the move, Tammy Bruce, spokesperson of the US state department, said: “It has been discussed for months. We use every tool in the tool chest to vet anyone coming in or who wants to come to this country, and in order to do so they have to apply for a visa to gain access to our nation. Every sovereign country has a right to know who is coming in, why they want to come, who they are, what they have been doing and hopefully, within that framework, to determine what they will be doing while they are here. So that’s nothing new and we will continue to use every tool to assess who is coming here, whether they are students or otherwise.”
The latest decision is expected to slow down the visa process at a time when hundreds of students from the world over apply for student visas to join the summer semester in US universities. The student applicants are expected to give details of their social media accounts and show their posts history to visa officers for them to flag any objections.
The US maintains that since 2019, the Department of State has required visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa application forms and that the country uses all available information during visa screening and vetting.