Irish students seeking US educational and exchange visas will be required to make their social media profiles public to allow officials to review their online activity, the US Embassy in Dublin has said.
In a statement on Monday, the embassy said the US State Department is “committed to protecting our nation and our citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process”.
“A US visa is a privilege, not a right,” it said.
The embassy said visa applicants will be required to list all social media usernames or handles for every platform they have used from the last five years on their visa application form so these accounts can be vetted.
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“Applicants certify that the information in their visa application is true and correct before they sign and submit. Omitting social media information could lead to visa denial and ineligibility for future visas,” the embassy said.
The approach will apply to all foreign students applying for visas to enter the US.
The embassy’s statement added that under new guidance “we will conduct a comprehensive and thorough vetting, including online presence, of all student and exchange visitor applicants in the F, M, and J nonimmigrant classifications”.
“We use all available information in our visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are inadmissible to the United States, including those who pose a threat to US national security,” the embassy said.
“To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas will be instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to ‘public’.”
The embassy said every visa adjudication was “a national security decision” and that the US “must be vigilant” that those applying for admission “do not intend to harm Americans and our national interests”.
Taoiseach Micheal Martin condemned the new requirements as “excessive” and said that they will cause “fear and anxiety” among young people.
“I believe those measures by the United States are excessive. I don’t approve of them and I don’t agree with them,” he said.
“One of the great things about the modern world is the capacity of young people to travel. Mobility is important. The US is probably one of the most difficult countries to get into at times. So there is an issue around freedom of speech but it’s more the atmosphere that’s created by these measures – the fear and the anxiety that young people will not experience travelling.”
Mr Martin was speaking to journalists in Dublin at the WHO conference on tobacco control at the National Convention Centre.
“I understand the security but I think that good intelligence and good security can stymie anyone who would be out to attack America . . . I think it is excessive, the measures announced today”.
US president Donald Trump’s administration paused issuing new education visas late last month as it considered new social media vetting rules.
The Dublin embassy said it would soon resume scheduling appointments for F, M, and J nonimmigrant visa applications.
Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn (AMLÉ), formerly known as the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) has urged students attending visa appointments to “proceed with caution”, advising them to “remain informed, stay safe, and carefully review what they are sharing publicly online.”
In a statement, the union called the new measures “a significant and disproportionate intrusion into students’ personal lives and digital privacy”, raising concerns about “freedom of expression and online surveillance”.
Bryan O’Mahony, Deputy President of AMLÉ said the updated guidelines create “a climate of fear and self-censorship” which risks “unfairly penalising students from marginalised or politically active communities.”
The union also noted the new measures “may discourage participation in global learning and weaken trust in the international student visa system.”
