Rubio orders US diplomats to scour student visa applicants’ social media accounts
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Students protesting the Gaza war at Columbia University in New York on April 29, 2024.
PHOTO: BING GUAN/NYTIMES
Edward Wong
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WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered diplomats overseas to scrutinise the social media content of some applicants of student and other types of visas, in an effort to ban those suspected of criticising the US and Israel from entering the country, US officials say.
He laid out the instructions in a long cable sent to diplomatic missions on March 25.
The move came nine weeks after US President Donald Trump signed executive orders to start a campaign to deport some foreign citizens, including those who might have “hostile attitudes” towards American “citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles”.
Mr Trump also issued an executive order to begin a crackdown on what he called anti-Semitism, which includes deporting foreign students who have taken part in campus protests against Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip.
Mr Rubio’s directive said that starting immediately, consular officers must refer certain student and exchange visitor visa applicants to the “fraud prevention unit” for a “mandatory social media check”, according to two US officials with knowledge of the cable.
The fraud prevention unit of an embassy’s or consulate’s section for consular affairs, which issues the visas, helps screen applicants.
The cable described the broad parameters that diplomats should use to judge whether to deny a visa. It cited remarks that Mr Rubio made in an interview with CBS News on March 16. “We don’t want people in our country that are going to be committing crimes and undermining our national security or the public safety,” he said then.
The cable specifies a type of applicant whose social media posts should be scrutinised: Someone who is suspected of having terrorist ties or sympathies; who had a student or exchange visa between Oct 7, 2023, and Aug 31, 2024; or who has had a visa terminated since that October date.
Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking about 250 hostages. That ignited a war in which Israel has carried out air strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza that have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza Health Ministry estimates.
The dates specified by Mr Rubio in the cable indicate that one of the main aims of the social media searches is to reject the applications of students who have expressed sympathy for Palestinians during the war. NYTIMES
