New Delhi asks Trump Admin to treat Indians' pleas for visas on merit

New Delhi: Even as President Donald Trump’s administration started vetting social media accounts of visa seekers and vowed to assess every application from the perspective of national security, New Delhi on Thursday subtly conveyed to Washington, DC, that the United States should decide on the pleas of the citizens of India on the basis of merit.

The US embassy in New Delhi on Thursday asked visa applicants to share their usernames or handles on all social media platforms they have used in the last five years.

“Omitting social media information could lead to visa denial and ineligibility for future visas,” the diplomatic mission of Washington, DC, in the capital of India posted on X. “Every US visa adjudication is a national security decision.”

“Visa matters, immigration matters are matters which pertain to sovereign functions of any country. But, having said that, we have seen the guidelines issued by the US side regarding providing details of social media identifiers in visa applications. But it is our belief that all visa applications of Indian nationals should be treated on the basis of merit,” Randhir Jaiswal, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, told journalists in New Delhi. “We remain engaged with the US side on all mobility issues and consular issues to ensure that the legitimate interests of Indian nationals are safeguarded,” New Delhi conveyed to the US.

The US embassy in New Delhi had on Monday asked all Indian citizens seeking F, M, and J visas for studying in institutions in America to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to ‘public’ to facilitate vetting.

The US grants F and M visas to foreign students seeking to travel to America to pursue an academic course and a vocational course, respectively. The J visa is granted to foreign students travelling to the US on an exchange programme.

“Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used from the last 5 years on the DS-160 visa application form. Applicants certify that the information in their visa application is true and correct before they sign and submit,” the embassy posted on X on Thursday.

Soon after Trump returned to the White House as the 47th American president on January 20, his administration launched a crackdown on political activism in the academic institutions in the US, particularly the protests against Israel’s military offensives against the Palestinians in Gaza. The Trump Administration revoked the US visas for many foreign students who participated in the protests against the military actions of Israel.

Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian PhD scholar at Columbia University, had self-deported from the US on March 11 after her visa had been revoked for her alleged participation in protests against Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, called her “a terrorist sympathiser” in post on X.

Badar Khan Suri, an Indian postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., had been arrested by law enforcement officers on March 17 for participating in a similar protest, but the move to deport him was stayed by a US court, and he had been released from the detention centre on May 14.

Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had on May 27 ordered the US missions around the world to stop scheduling new appointments for students and exchange visitors who had applied for visas. The State Department moved to widen the process to expand social media vetting of foreign students. The US last week withdrew the ban on granting visas to students, but moved to step up vetting the social media accounts.

In 2023, the US consular team in India issued over 140,000 F-1 student visas – more than in any other country in the world, setting a record for the third year in a row. Taken individually, US consulates in Mumbai, New Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai stood as the top four student visa processing posts in the world. Indian students in 2023 became the largest group of international graduate students in the US and make up more than a quarter of the over one million foreign students studying in the US.

In 2024, India became the top sender of international students for the first time since the 2008/2009 academic year, with more than 331,000 students overall studying in the US. India also remained the largest sender of international graduate students in the US for the second year; Indian graduate student numbers increased by 19 per cent to reach almost 200,000 students in 2024.

The US embassy on June 19 had said that a US visa was “a privilege, not a right”, and its screening would not stop after the issuance of the visa, and authorities could revoke it if the foreign traveller broke the law. The embassy had also said that using illegal drugs or breaking any US laws while on a student or visitor visa could make one ineligible for future US visas.