Tongan students hoping to study in the United States face stricter visa requirements after the Trump Administration announced that all applicants must now allow U.S. officials to review their social media accounts.
The new rule, announced Wednesday by the U.S. State Department, comes as Tongans reel from recent reports that the U.S. may impose a travel ban on Tongan citizens unless the Tongan government meets undisclosed demands.
Tonga was among 36 countries the Trump Administration wanted to convince with a proposal that they were taking genuine steps to improve their passport vetting process, prevent ‘widespread government fraud,’ accept deportees from other countries, and reduce overstays in the U.S.
While there are no specific statistics on how many Tongan students travel to the U.S. to study each year, a significant number of Tongan members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) attend Brigham Young University (BYU) in Hawai’i annually.
The LDS Church is the second-largest denomination in Tonga and was responsible for the first large-scale migration of Tongans to the United States in the early 1950s.
US Tightens Social Media Vetting
World media reported that the order applies to all “international student visas”, with no exceptions mentioned.
New applicants will now have to make their social media accounts public for enhanced vetting, the BBC reported.
It said the student visa appointments halted in late May as it worked to step up measures to restrict applicants deemed hostile to the US.
“As part of last week’s announcement, they said scheduling would now resume, and they would now be asking all applicants to make their social media accounts public for enhanced screening”, the BBC reported.
A spokesperson for the US State Department told the BBC that those who keep their social media accounts private may be deemed to be trying to hide their activity.
They said officials had been instructed to expand the social media vetting of applicants and search for “any indications of hostility toward the citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles of the United States”.
“It is an expectation from American citizens that their government will make every effort to make our country safer, and that is exactly what the Trump administration is doing every single day,” a senior State Department official said.
Who will be affected?
The new guidelines will affect all applicants who apply for F visas, which students primarily use.
Applicants for the M visas, used for vocational students and those applying for J visas, used by exchange students, will also be affected, a State Department spokesperson told the BBC.
