The State Department is finally starting to play hardball with Hamas-sympathetic visa applicants. Or is it?
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at least 300 foreign students have had their visas revoked in the course of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. “Maybe more, it might be more than 300 at this point,” Rubio explained.
“We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa,” he added. “I hope at some point we run out because we have gotten rid of all of them, but we’re looking every day for these lunatics that are tearing things up.”
On top of student visa holders, the Trump administration has gone after legal permanent residents, such as Mahmoud Khalil. Rubio revoked Khalil’s green card under a once little-used part of immigration law. The government of the United States can take away green cards from legal permanent residents, as well as student visas, if “the Secretary of State determines that the applicant’s activities abroad are causing or are likely to cause serious damage to the national security or the foreign policy of the United States.”
But Rubio (backed up by his State Department Visa Office) is just one man. Time to change that. Rubio just ordered consular posts globally to significantly expand their screening processes for student visa applicants, including through comprehensive social media investigations, to exclude people they deem to support terrorism. A State Department cable from March 25 describes a new standard for visa denials for support for terrorist activity. The world-wide directive, “Action Request: Enhanced Screening and Social Media Vetting for Visa Applicants,” states that “evidence that an applicant advocates for terrorist activity, or otherwise demonstrates a degree of public approval or public advocacy for terrorist activity or a terrorist organization” can be grounds for visa refusal.
The new order specifically targets student visa applications (F, M, and J, although Trump’s underlying EO requires people to share their social media handles when applying for U.S. citizenship, green cards, asylum, and other immigration benefits), requiring consular officers to conduct mandatory social media reviews of applicants for evidence of activities which may be a threat to national security or terrorism. The vetting process will also include foreign students in the U.S. as of October 7, 2023—the day that Hamas attacked Israel—whose visas are up for renewal. The heavy lifting for this work will fall on diplomatic posts’ tiny fraud-prevention units, which will take screenshots of derogatory social media content to create a digital record to deny entry. Those officers are instructed to preserve screenshots indefinitely “to the extent it is relevant to a visa ineligibility.”
“Evidence that an applicant advocates for terrorist activity or otherwise demonstrates a degree of public approval or public advocacy for terrorist activity or a terrorist organization may be indicative of ineligibility,” reads the cable. “This may be evident in conduct that bears a hostile attitude towards U.S. citizens or U.S. culture, including government institutions or founding principles. Or it may be evident in advocacy or sympathy for foreign terrorist organizations. All of these matters may open lines of inquiry regarding the applicant’s credibility and purpose of travel.”
The cable further states:
As part of screening every case for potential ineligibilities, consular officers MUST ADDRESS [sic] any derogatory information indicating that a visa applicant may be subject to the terrorism-related ineligibility grounds of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA)… This includes advocating for, sympathizing with, or persuading others to endorse or espouse terrorist activities or support a DESIGNATED FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION (FTO).
Such statements, warns one immigration law firm, need not come from the visa applicant; a reposting of objectionable content from another person will be just as damaging.
“Every visa decision is a national security decision,” the cable concludes.
The U.S. government began seriously using social media for immigration vetting in 2014 under President Barack Obama. In late 2015, the Department of Homeland Security began both “manual and automatic screening of the social media accounts of a limited number of individuals applying to travel to the United States, through various non-public pilot programs.” In May 2017, the Department of State issued an emergency notice to increase the screening of visa applicants. Two years later, the State Department began collecting social media handles from almost all foreigners applying for visas to travel to the U.S.
The United States has thus since 2019 collected social media information on every visa applicant. Information, specifically “Social Media Provider/Platform” and “Social Media Identifier” for the last five years is collected by the State Department when the visa applicant completes Form DS-160 Online Consular Visa Application with their biographic, travel, and security information, in advance of appearing for a visa interview. The form specifically asks for such well-known social media sites as Facebook and Instagram, as well as popular overseas apps like Weibo. USCIS inspectors at the various ports of entry have long been able to review social media, as well as smartphones, for people applying to enter the U.S.
There are, however, problems with the expansion of the social media check to visa applications that suggest it is more for show than impact at this point. The most obvious one is the social media is self-created (and can thus be deleted or altered ahead of a visa application; better yet, “avoid sharing sensitive or controversial opinions or content that may be misconstrued” warns an immigration attorney) and self-reported (which means an applicant can hide his postings under a handle or assumed name). Another immigration lawyer specifically admonishes his clients to
review any social media accounts for questionable activity from the last five years. You can delete content if you think that it might cause suspicions or misinterpretations. Another step to consider involves enhancing the privacy settings on your social media accounts. By restricting access to your account, you may be able to block immigration authorities from reviewing content on it.
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The real issue is one of logistics. In January 2025 alone, not a busy month for student visas, over 2,200 were issued in India alone. Statistics on visa refusals, include any for social media content, are not published, but add in a percentage for that and the assumption that most social media users use multiple apps (Facebook, X, Instagram, etc.) and you get some idea of how many accounts will need to be checked by State Department anti-fraud units to satisfy Rubio’s new dictate for a manual fishing expedition for each applicant. On top of that, reviewers will have to deal with the complications of closed or locked accounts (the U.S. specifically does not ask for passwords). All of this on a massive scale—about 15 million people a year apply for visas.
Artificial intelligence may someday be the answer, but not today. AI tools used to comb through potentially millions of social media accounts have evolved over the past decade, but experts caution such tools have limits. Leon Rodriguez, who served as the director of USCIS from 2014 to 2017 and is now an immigration attorney, said that, while AI could be used as a first screening tool, he doesn’t think “we’re anywhere close to where AI will be able to exercise the judgment of a trained fraud detection and national security officer.”
Rubio may still need to spend some time each day at his desk personally revoking visas, despite his order to his diplomats to use social media to vet all applicants world-wide. The social media tool remains available when other information suggests an applicant may have ties or otherwise supports a terror organization, but it is impractical on a mass scale under current circumstances.
