Rubio orders American diplomats to search for social media for students in the student visa

Foreign Minister Marco Rubio commanded diplomats abroad to audit the social media content of some students and other types of visas, in an attempt to ban those suspected of criticizing the United States and Israel from entering the country.

Mr. Rubio put the instructions in a long cable sent to diplomatic missions on March 25.

The move came nine weeks after President Trump signed executive orders to start a campaign to Deportation Some foreign citizens, including those who may be “Hostile situations“Toward” citizens, culture, government, institutions, or principles.

Mr. Trump also issued an executive order to start a campaign As he called the anti -Semitism, which includes the deportation of foreign students who participated in the campus protests against the Israel war in Gaza.

Mr. Rubio’s directive said that the beginning is immediately, consular officers must refer some applicants to students visitors and exchange them to the “fraud prevention unit” in order to “a mandatory examination of social media,” according to two US officials on knowing the cable.

The Fraud Prevention Unit in the embassy or consulate department for consular affairs, which issues visas, helps applicants to examine.

The cable describes the wide parameters that diplomats should use to judge whether the visa will be rejected. quote comments “We do not want people in our country who commit crimes and undermine our national security or public safety.” “It is simply, especially the people here as guests. This is what the visa is.”

The cable determines a type of applicants who must examine social media publications: a person suspected of terrorist relationships or sympathy; Who had a student or visa exchange between October 7, 2023 and August 31, 2024; Or who has been completed since October.

Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking about 250 hostages. This sparked a war in which Israel carried out air strikes and a ground invasion of Gaza, which killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, according to the estimates of the Ministry of Health in Ghazan.

The dates set by Mr. Rubio in the cable indicate that one of the main goals of the search for social media is to reject the applications of students who expressed their sympathy for the Palestinians during the war.

The cable also states that applicants can be rejected if their behavior or actions show that they bear a “hostile position towards American citizens or American culture (including government, institutions or foundational principles.)”

Such formulation can motivate foreign citizens to self -control over many types of speech to avoid exposing their chances of obtaining a visa.

American consular officials can find it difficult to judge the previous data of the applicant and social media publications, especially if they do not know the appropriate context.

Some foreign citizens who have a critical vision of American policies may abandon a request for a visa, which is a favorite result of Mr. Rubio.

The cable said that the required visas that will start an additional audit is the visas of the visitors from F, M and J – for students.

The cable details were first I mentioned By Handbasket, an independent news site.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when he was asked to comment, said that the agency had not discussed internal deliberations. They referred to this in 2019, the department Visa application forms have been changed To request information about social media accounts.

As a Senator of Florida, Mr. Rubio pressed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Biden administration, which is run by Anthony J. Planken, to cancel the visas of the students participating in the campus protests against the military campaign of Israel in Gaza. Since he became the Foreign Minister in late January, Mr. Rubio has Eliminate Perhaps 300 or more visas, many of whom belong to students, as he told reporters last Thursday. He said he was signing messages on daily nullities.

“My criteria: If we know this information about it before we give them a visa, would we allow them to enter?” He said. “If the answer is no, we play the visa.”

Earlier that day, in response to a reporter’s question, Mr. Rubio said that students “go beyond a demonstration. They go while they are creating Rocos. They create riots, on the campus.”

“Each of them I find it, we will expel them.”

A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in an e -mail in mid -March that “all available technology” was used to examine visa applicants and visa holders. The spokesperson was answering a question from the New York Times about whether the administration was using artificial intelligence To survey databases and social media to find visa holders, in the eyes of Trump assistants, they should be canceled.

After signing the cancellation letters, Mr. Rubio sends it to the Ministry of Internal Security. The administration sent the agents to the detention of some foreign citizens who were stripped of their visas or, in a few cases, and put them as a permanent resident of the United States, known as the green card holder.

In early March, Mr. Rubio informed internal security officials that he canceled the permanent residence status of Mahmoud Khalil30, which recently obtained a postgraduate certificate from Columbia University and born in Syria, and UNESO Chung21, Colombia university student was born in South Korea. He referred to a law of the Immigration Law, which allows him to recommend depriving anyone who will be because of his existence “serious consequences for foreign policy on the United States.”

Mr. Khalil is married to an American citizen, and Mrs. Chung has lived in the United States since she was seven years old.

Last week, half of the federal agents wear black, some wearing masks, tear Rumeysa Ozturk, Turkish high school student at Tuffs University, off one of the streets in Summerille, Massachusetts, and took it to a detention center. Mr. Rubio then said that he canceled the student visa.

Mrs. Oztuk wrote article For the newspaper newspaper last year, he called for university support for Palestinian rights and abstraction from Israel.

Mr. Rubio said last Thursday: “At some point, I hope that we will rely because we all got rid of them,” said Mr. Rubio last Thursday. “But every day we are looking for these crazy people who tear things.”

He added: “I encourage every country to do this, by the way, because I think it is crazy to invite students to your country who come to your campus and destabilize its stability.”

Michael Crowley The reports contributed.