The US State Department suspended visa appointments for foreign students as it prepares to expand social media screening for applicants, according to an internal document obtained by The Washington Post on Tuesday.
The department’s decision comes amid the Trump administration’s broader efforts to combat rising antisemitism on college campuses.
“Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued,” the cable stated, according to The Washington Post. Unclaimed appointment slots “should be immediately removed from availability,” the cable added.
A senior State Department official confirmed the authenticity of the document to The Washington Post. The decision is the latest step in the administration’s push to scrutinize the political beliefs and online activities of international students, particularly those with pro-Palestinian views.
The Department of Homeland Security announced last month, as part of White House executive orders addressing antisemitism, that it would begin screening non-citizens’ social media accounts for antisemitic content to potentially deny visa and green-card applications.
'Every country has a right to know who’s trying to come in'
Legal experts and civil liberties advocates told The Washington Post that this policy could violate First Amendment rights. The author of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism even told NPR that the administration had misused the term.
The State Department’s document also reflected that broader initiative, instructing posts to “evaluate operations and processes in preparation for this expanded social media vetting of all student and exchange visitor (F, M, J) visa applicants,” The Washington Post reported.
Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokeswoman, declined to provide details on how the social media vetting process might change. “We’re not going to lay [the process] out here with the media, the nature of the steps that are taken, the methods that we use,” she told reporters, as reported by The Washington Post. She added: “We use every tool in our toolbox to vet anyone coming in who wants to enter this country.”
“Every country has a right to know who’s trying to come in, why they want to come in, who they are and what they’ve been doing,” Bruce said. “So that’s nothing new, and we will continue to use every tool we can to assess who is coming here, whether they are students or otherwise,” she told The Washington Post.
More than 1 million international students attend US colleges each year, contributing nearly $44 billion to the economy, according to data from NAFSA: Association of International Educators, cited by The Washington Post. Advocates warn that the suspension and expanded vetting could deter students from studying in the US.
“Depending on how restrictive the Trump administration becomes on awarding student visas, it would mean fewer international students would plan on coming to the US,” Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, told The Washington Post. “People like to have some certainty when they’re making plans, particularly something so vital to their future as where they will study and maybe have a career.”
Anderson also warned that giving consular officers broad authority to deny visas based on social media posts could leave students with little recourse. “This all started when they arrested students who were involved in [pro-Palestinian] protests or wrote op-ed pieces the administration didn’t like,” Anderson said, describing how the administration determined such activities were “not in the foreign policy interest of the United States,” The Washington Post reported.
President Donald Trump has vowed to deport international students who he claims engage in “pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American” protests linked to Israel’s conflict in Gaza.
According to The Washington Post, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the administration has already revoked hundreds of student visas this year.
While previous court rulings and due process requirements have limited the administration’s actions against students already in the US, Anderson said that focusing on social media vetting at the visa application stage could bypass those protections. “By focusing more attention on people before they get to the US, they would cut off legal avenues that people would have once they’re in the US,” he told The Washington Post.