The move is part of the administration’s preparations to expand social media vetting, according to internal cable.
Trump administration restores visa registrations for foreign students
The Trump administration has restored visa registrations for potentially thousands of foreign students.
President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered a mission abroad to halt scheduling new appointments of student and exchange visitor visa applicants as the State Department prepares to expand social media reviews of foreign students, according to an internal cable seen on Tuesday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Cable that the faculty plans to issue updated guidance on social media reviews for student and exchange visitor applicants after the review is completed, and would advise the consul section to stop scheduling of visa appointments in the meantime.
The move comes as the Trump administration tried to step up deportation and revoke student visas as part of a broader effort to fulfill his hard-hit political agenda.
In the cable first reported by Politico, Rubio said that already scheduled appointments can proceed with current guidelines, but available reservations that have not yet been taken should be reduced.
“The department is conducting a review of existing operations and processes for screening and reviewing student and exchange visitor (F, M, J) visa applicants and is planning to issue guidance on expanded social media reviews for all such applicants based on that review,” Cable said.
State Department spokesman Tammy Bruce declined to comment on the cable report, but said the US would use “all tools” to reject anyone who wants to enter the US.
“We will continue to use every tool we can to assess who is here, whether students or not,” Bruce told reporters during a regular news briefing.
The expanded social media review requires a consul section to change the operations, processes and allocation of resources, according to Cable. This advises future sections to consider workload and resource requirements for each case before scheduling.
Trump administration officials have said student visas and green cardholders are subject to deportation over their support for Palestinians and criticism of Israel’s actions in the war in Gaza, calling their actions a threat to US foreign policy and accusing them of pro-hammers.
Trump critics call the effort an attack on freedom of speech under the First Amendment.
Tufts University students from Turkish origin have been held for more than six weeks at the Immigration Detention Center in Louisiana after co-authoring an opinion paper criticizing the school’s response to Israeli war in Gaza. She was released from custody after a federal judge granted her bail.
Last week, the Trump administration moved to revoke Harvard’s ability to register international students. Approximately 6,800 students make up about 27% of Harvard’s total enrollment.
The Republican presidential administration moved to undermine the financial stability and global status of the country’s oldest and wealthiest universities after pushing back government demands for significant changes in policy.
