By: Yeganeh Torbati and Mica Rosenberg |
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK:
The U.S. Department of State has proposed tougher questioning of visa applicants believed to warrant extra scrutiny, according to a document published Thursday, in a push toward the “extreme vetting” that President Donald Trump has said is necessary to prevent terrorist attacks.
Questions about social media accounts would be part of the stepped-up criteria, which would apply to 65,000 people per year, or about 0.5 percent of U.S. visa applicants worldwide, the State Department estimated. It did not target nationals of any particular countries.
A set of new questions would apply to visa applicants “who have been determined to warrant additional scrutiny in connection with terrorism or other national security-related visa ineligibilities,” the State Department said in a notice to the Federal Register.
Those applicants would be required to provide all prior passport numbers, five years’ worth of social media handles, email addresses and phone numbers, as well as 15 years of biographical information, when applying for a U.S. visa. Consular officers would not request user passwords for social media accounts, the document said.
If granted, the new criteria would mark the first concrete step toward more stringent vetting that Trump asked federal agencies to apply toward travelers from countries he deemed a threat to the United States in an executive order issued in January and revised in March.
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