Visa applicants will now face social media background checks

Visa.
(Image credit: iStock)

Want to come to America? Get your Twitter handle ready. The White House on Thursday approved a harsher visa vetting procedure that, among other changes, includes social media scrutiny.

Applicants are asked to provide "your unique user name for any websites or applications you have used to create or share content (photos, videos, status updates, etc.) as part of a public profile within the last five years." Officially, compliance is voluntary, but refusal can affect whether or how quickly an application is processed.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.