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The State Department will begin reviewing the social media accounts of Harvard student visa applicants for antisemitism as part of the applicants’ vetting process, according to a cable obtained by Politico.
Consular offices will “conduct a complete screening of the online presence of any nonimmigrant visa applicant seeking to travel to Harvard University for any purpose,” according to the cable, which was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and sent on Thursday.
The policy will go into effect immediately and is part of a pilot program that “will be expanded over time.”
The State Department’s guidance comes after the agency instructed U.S. embassies and consulates nationwide to pause scheduling new student visa interviews on Tuesday, halting the process to obtain student visas while the Trump administration drafted new guidance on social media screening.
The Thursday cable stated that consular offices should consider whether students with private or limited visibility social media accounts are attempting to evade vetting.
The cable also said that consular officers could ask students to make their accounts public when the Fraud Prevention Unit examines their application.
The move will affect admitted students to Harvard College’s Class of 2029, as well as current students renewing their existing visas. The policy will also apply to faculty, staff, and researchers across the University.
A University spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The directive to consulates appears to be an attempt to do by force what the Trump administration could not persuade Harvard to do on its own. In an early April letter to Harvard, three federal agencies asked the University to screen international applicants “to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and institutions inscribed in the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence” or associated with terrorism or antisemitism.
Harvard rejected the demands, calling them an unlawful attempt to control what is studied on its campus and regulate whom the University can admit and hire.
The pilot program targeting Harvard is one of multiple measures the White House has taken against the school’s international students in recent weeks.
The Department of Homeland Security revoked Harvard’s certification to host international students campus last week — but a federal judge decided to extend a temporary restraining order preventing the DHS’s order from going into place during a Thursday hearing.
The Trump administration backed down from its initial decision to immediately revoke the University’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program certification and gave Harvard 30 days to “rebut the alleged grounds for withdrawal.”
The Department of State also announced on Wednesday evening that they would “aggressively revoke visas for Chinese students” over national security concerns. More than a thousand students from China currently study at Harvard.
Harvard had not received communication from the State Department as of Thursday pertaining to the temporary pause on visa appointments or moves to limit the visas of Chinese international students, according to the Harvard International Office website.
The University has mounted a vocal public defense of its global student body. Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 welcomed thousands of students and families to Thursday’s Commencement exercises by affirming the importance of international students to Harvard’s campus and the graduating class of 2025.
“Welcome, guests from down the street, across the country, and around the world,” Garber said. “Welcome, members of the Class of 2025, from down the street, across the country and around the world. Around the world — just as it should be.”
The crowd roared with applause and gave Garber a standing ovation.
—Staff writer Samuel A. Church can be reached at samuel.church@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @samuelachurch.
—Staff writer Cam N. Srivastava can be reached at cam.srivastava@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @camsrivastava.
