Rubio orders social media scrutiny for visa applicants

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has issued an order to U.S. diplomats stationed abroad to search through the social media accounts of those applying for student and other kinds of visas to come to the U.S.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has issued an order to U.S. diplomats stationed abroad to search through the social media accounts of those applying for student and other kinds of visas to come to the U.S.

The effort to stop anyone suspected of criticizing the U.S. or Israel comes as the Trump administration is stepping up its efforts to detain and deport students already in the U.S. who have been found to have taken part in protests against the war in Gaza.

Rubio outlined the instructions to diplomats in a lengthy cable sent to diplomatic missions on March 25, according to The New York Times. The edict comes just over two months after President Donald Trump signed executive orders to begin a widespread effort to deport some people in the U.S., such as those who may have “hostile attitudes” toward American “citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles.”

Trump also put forward an executive order to start cracking down on what he referred to as antisemitism, including deporting students who took part in campus protests against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Rubio’s instructions stated that starting immediately, consular officers have to refer some student and exchange visitor visa applications to the “fraud prevention unit” for a “mandatory social media check,” two U.S. officials told The Times.

The fraud prevention unit in an embassy or consulate screens visa applicants. The instructions outlined the parameters that consular officers should follow when deciding whether to reject an applicant. It pointed to comments Rubio made to 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,” said Rubio. “It’s that simple, especially people that are here as guests. That is what a visa is.”

The cable states that someone who is suspected of having terrorist connections or sympathies should have their social media accounts scrutinized. The same goes for anyone who had a student or exchange visa between October 7, 2023, and August 31, 2024, or someone who had a visa terminated since October 7, 2023.

Hamas attacked Israel on that October day in 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking around 250 hostages, prompting a war in which more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to estimates by the Gaza health ministry.

The dates included by Rubio in the cable suggest that one of the top goals of the social media searches is to deny visas to applicants who may have shared opinions sympathetic to the Palestinians.

The cable adds that applicants can also be denied a visa if they have conducted themselves in a way that shows “a hostile attitude toward U.S. citizens or U.S. culture (including government, institutions, or founding principles).”

The cable could prompt foreign citizens to self-censor to avoid scuppering their chances of acquiring a visa.

The instructions sent to diplomats stated that the visa types that would lead to extra scrutiny include F, M, and J, which are student and exchange visitor visas.

The cable was initially reported on by the independent news site The Handbasket.

A spokesperson for the State Department told The Times that the agency doesn’t speak about internal discussions, but noted that the department changed its visa application forms in 2019 to request information regarding social media accounts.

After becoming the top U.S. diplomat in late January, Rubio has revoked 300 or more visas, many of them student visas, the secretary told reporters last Thursday.

“My standard: If we knew this information about them before we gave them a visa, would we have allowed them in?” said Rubio. “And if the answer is no, then we revoke the visa.”

Previously, that same day, when speaking to a reporter, Rubio said the students were “going beyond demonstration. They are going and they are creating a ruckus. They are creating riots, basically, on campus.”

He vowed: “Every one of them I find, we’re going to kick them out.”