The Trump administration is ordering a new layer of scrutiny for temporary workers and international students, telling applicants for key U.S. visas to make their social media accounts public as the State Department expands “online presence” checks.
In a notice published Tuesday, the department said that from December 15, it will require an online presence review for all H-1B skilled worker applicants and their H-4 dependents, on top of the students and exchange visitors already subject to the same screening. To “facilitate this vetting,” it instructs all applicants for H-1B, H-4 and the F, M and J student and exchange categories to switch their social media privacy settings to “public.”
The State Department said it uses “all available information” in visa screening to identify people who are inadmissible, including those seen as a threat to national security or public safety, and described every visa adjudication as “a national security decision,” adding that “a U.S. visa is a privilege, not a right.”
The move comes after months of tighter immigration controls under President Donald Trump, including new social media checks by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), expanded ideological vetting of applicants and a sharp rise in visa revocations, often justified as necessary to protect national security and “American values.”
Why It Matters
The latest directive targets a cluster of visa categories at the heart of America’s high-skilled workforce and university system. H-1B visas are a primary route for technology companies and other employers to bring in foreign talent, while F-1, M-1 and J-1 visas cover academic study, vocational training and exchange programs that brought more than 1.5 million foreign students to U.S. campuses in 2024.
Newsweek reporting has shown that H-1B visas have become a flashpoint inside Trump’s own political coalition: The administration has backed steep fee hikes and enforcement initiatives like “Project Firewall,” while business groups and some Republicans argue the program is critical to U.S. competitiveness and to filling STEM shortages.
The same pattern is visible in student and exchange visas. Since Trump returned to office, more than 6,000 F-1 visas have been revoked in a matter of months, according to data cited in a recent Newsweek analysis, with college leaders warning that aggressive enforcement could hollow out local economies and campus budgets.
Layering mandatory “public” social media exposure on top of that trend deepens concerns already raised by universities, civil-liberties advocates and immigration lawyers about the chilling effect of surveillance on lawful speech.
At the same time, the new State Department rule underscores how central social media and online activity have become to Trump-era immigration policy, with visa holders and applicants facing consequences for posts, affiliations or protest activity that officials interpret as security or ideological risks.
What To Know
The State Department’s notice says that beginning December 15, consular officers will conduct an “online presence review” for every H-1B applicant and their H-4 dependents—bringing them in line with F, M and J student and exchange visa applicants, who are already subject to this scrutiny.
To make that possible, the department is “instructing” all H-1B, H-4, F, M and J applicants to turn their social media privacy settings to public, effectively inviting U.S. officials to scroll through posts, photos and connections when deciding who gets a visa.
The department frames the move as an extension of existing vetting tools used “to ensure that those applying for admission into the United States do not intend to harm Americans and our national interests.”
It slots into a wider campaign of stepped-up screening across agencies. In March, USCIS announced plans to update application forms so officers could collect social media identifiers for all visa and citizenship applicants, saying the change was needed to comply with a Trump executive order on “protecting the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats.”
In April, the Department of Homeland Security policy directed USCIS to review immigrants’ social media accounts for antisemitic content and treat such posts as a “negative factor” in deciding applications.
By August, USCIS had gone further, announcing that “anti-American” activity would be weighed heavily against applicants for a wide range of immigration benefits, from temporary visa extensions to green cards and citizenship, as part of a new policy manual update that “expands vetting procedures.”
In parallel, the Trump administration has tightened legal pathways and ramped up enforcement. The State Department revoked more than 80,000 nonimmigrant visas over the past year—over 8,000 of them student visas—as part of a broader crackdown that includes reviewing visa holders’ online activity and, in some cases, canceling status for protesters and critics of U.S. policy.
Trump’s policies—including a proposed $100,000 fee on new petitions and an enforcement initiative targeting employers alleged to sideline U.S. workers—have intensified scrutiny of the program even as Congress debates bills that would expand the annual cap.
What People Are Saying
A USCIS spokesman, in August: “America’s benefits should not be given to those who despise the country and promote anti-American ideologies,” framing the agency’s new policy as part of “rigorous screening and vetting measures to the fullest extent possible.”
Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, to Newsweek: “H-1B visas are important because they are typically the only way to hire a high-skilled foreign national long term in the United States, and approximately 70 percent of full-time graduate students in key science and technology fields at U.S. schools are international students.”
What Happens Next
The State Department’s directive takes effect on December 15, meaning visa applicants will need to make their social media profiles public before consular officers conduct an “online presence review” as part of routine vetting.
With Trump administration officials touting the rise in visa revocations and new vetting tools as proof of a tougher security posture, the State Department’s decision is set to become another flashpoint in the battle over how far the U.S. can go in scrutinizing the online lives of people who want to study, work or visit.
