All Indians applying for student visas or exchange visitor visas to the United States now need to make their social media profiles public, the US embassy in India reiterated on Monday.

The new rules are applicable to all student visa and exchange visitor visa applicants globally.

The instructions were for F, M and J category of non-immigrant visas. The F visa is for academic studies, M for vocational training and J for cultural exchange.

The change, effective immediately, is aimed at enabling background checks during the visa screening process to establish applicants’ “identity and admissibility" to the US, the embassy said.

Since 2019, the US has required visa applicants to submit social media identifiers, the diplomatic mission said in a statement.

“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,” it added.

The directive follows the recent US announcement to resume student visa appointments.

On Wednesday, the State Department directed US embassies to restart visa processes. However, it had stated that applicants must unlock their social media profiles for review.

The Trump administration had on May 27 instructed embassies globally to halt student visa interviews until further notice.

Post resumption of the visa services, US consular officers have been told to examine applications to identify those who “bear hostile attitudes toward our citizens, culture, government, institutions or founding principles”, Reuters quoted an internal State Department document as saying.

The document, sent by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, instructed officials to look for “applicants who demonstrate a history of political activism, especially when it is associated with violence”.

In cases involving such applicants, officers must consider the likelihood that they would continue such activities in the US as well, the document said.

The US had paused scheduling student visa interviews amid Trump’s clash with top universities in the country, including Harvard, which he has accused of promoting Left-wing views, enabling antisemitism on campus and supporting discriminatory admissions policies.

His administration has taken aggressive actions to try to enforce its demands, including freezing hundreds of millions of dollars in university funding, revoking visas and attempting to deport international students. However, many of these measures have been blocked by the courts.

More than 1.1 million international students were enrolled in US universities during the academic year 2023-’24, accounting for 6% of those pursuing higher education in the country, according to US-based non-governmental organisation Institute of International Education.

India sent the highest number of students, followed by China, it added.

Also read: ‘It’s taking a gamble’: As US vets social media posts for student visas, anxiety grips applicants