US Embassy in PH asks student visa applicants to set social media accounts to public
Are you applying for a student visa? The US Embassy in the Philippines said that all applicants need to set their social media accounts to public to establish their admissibility to the United States.
The embassy announced on Tuesday, June 24, the new guidelines for individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa following the US Law.
“Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to 'public' to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States,” the Embassy wrote on its Facebook post.
An F nonimmigrant visa is for foreign nationals who wish to study in the US under a traditional academic program, such as college, high school, seminary, or other academic institution, like a language training program, among others, while an M nonimmigrant visa is for those who would take on vocational courses.
Meanwhile, J nonimmigrant visa applicants are those who intend to participate in exchange visitor programs in the United States designed to "promote the interchange of persons, knowledge, and skills, in the fields of education, arts, and science."
“Since 2019, the United States has required visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa application forms,” the US Embassy explained.
“We use all available information in our visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are inadmissible to the United States, including those who pose a threat to U.S. national security,” they added.
This came amid an immigration crackdown by the Trump administration, which has pledged to deport millions of people who are living undocumented in the United States.
Early this month, US President Donald Trump imposed a travel ban on 12 countries, namely Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, and partial ban from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.
