Trump halts student visas, orders enhanced social media vetting

The Donald Trump administration has ordered all its embassies worldwide to immediately stop scheduling student visa appointments as it prepares to expand social media vetting of all foreign students.

The Trump instructions also ordered all US consulates to halt adding more student or exchange visitor visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued.

The directive could severely delay visa processing and affect universities that rely on foreign students for revenue.

In a diplomatic message to all embassies, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that social media vetting would be significantly increased for student and foreign exchange visas. The new process will have significant implications for embassies and consulates, which will be overwhelmed by the increased vetting requirements.

‘Far-left ideologies enable antisemitism’

The order comes amid Trump’s fierce feud with some of the United States’ most elite colleges, including, more notably, Harvard University, all of which he accuses of having far-left ideologies that, in some cases, have enabled antisemitism on campus.

A BBC report stated that the memo instructed US embassies to remove any unfilled appointments from their calendars for students seeking visas. However, it noted that those with already scheduled appointments could proceed.

The memo also stated that the State Department was preparing to introduce an expansion of social media screening and vetting for all students seeking to attend US universities.

“The department is conducting a review of existing operations and processes for screening and vetting of student and exchange visitor visa applicants,” the cable reads, according to The Guardian report. Officials plan to issue guidance on “expanded social media vetting for all such applicants”.

Seeking evidence of terrorist support

According to a different cable obtained by The Guardian, “since March, consular officers have been required to conduct mandatory social media reviews looking for evidence of support for ‘terrorist activity or a terrorist organisation’ which could be as broad as showing support for the Palestinian cause.”

The directive requires consulate officials to take screenshots of “potentially derogatory” content for permanent records, in case it is deleted later.

In a Senate Hearing Committee covered by Forbes, Rubio said, “his department has revoked visas numbering probably in the thousands at this point. I don’t know the latest count, but we probably have more to do.” 

According to a National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA) statement, there are more than one million foreign students in the United States, contributing nearly $43.8 billion to the US economy and supporting over 378,000 jobs from 2023 to 2024.