The State Department wants to require nearly all US visa applicants to provide social media username and account information, a move that would affect approximately 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and fourteen million nonimmigrant visa applicants. If these proposed changes published in the Federal Register are accepted after the sixty-day public comment period ends, the new requirements would ask for social media handles as well as prior email addresses and telephone numbers from the last five years when individuals apply to come to the US. This comes after the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced last year its intention to screen social media accounts of all immigrants, including Green Card holders and naturalized US citizens.
Read moreHow a “Status Update” Could Cause You to Lose Your Immigration Status
In this day and age social media is a part of most people’s daily lives. Updating your status on Facebook, posting pictures on Instagram, making witty commentary on Twitter, and checking up on colleagues on LinkedIn have all become part of our day-to-day activities. But it’s not just family and friends who may be viewing your updates. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced that it intends to monitor the social media of immigrants—even permanent residents and naturalized US citizens. Additionally, in May this year, the Trump administration approved a new questionnaire that asks for social media handles going back five years for visa applicants worldwide. Historically, consular officers and USCIS adjudicators have, on occasion, also used Google searches and checked social media to research visa applicants and verify information on the submitted paperwork. For all these reasons, it couldn’t be a better time to discuss how various government agencies might be using the information on foreign national’s social media sites, specifically in regards to adjudicating visa applications and determining admissibility to the United States.
Read moreThe New York Times: “Forced Searches of Phones and Laptops at U.S. Border are Illegal, Lawsuit Claims”
Two civil rights groups filed a lawsuit last week against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on behalf of eleven people whose cellphones and laptops were confiscated or searched at the nation’s border. The lawsuit alleges that their First and Fourth Amendment rights were violated when their devices were seized and searched without a warrant. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed the lawsuit for these eleven individuals, which includes ten American citizens and one permanent resident. These individuals, a journalist, student, US military veteran, artist, and NASA engineer, among others, hope that the lawsuit will force courts to place limits on the agency’s broad authority to search all travelers entering the country, including US citizens. The lawsuit argues that the current laws in place that established rules for searching luggage for all individuals (unless exempt by diplomatic status) regardless of nationality should not apply to electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, and laptops because these types of devices contain immense amounts of personal data and information.
Read moreNew York Times: "Border Officers Nearly Double Searches of Electronic Devices, US Says"
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers at the border and airports have almost doubled their searches of electronic devices for individuals entering the US in the last six months, according to data released last week by CBP.
The data shows that CBP searched the electronic devices of 14,993 arriving international travelers since October of fiscal year 2017, with only 8,383 devices searched during the same period of the previous fiscal year. CBP notes that while the number of searches did increase, it only affects 0.008 percent of the approximately 189.6 million travelers arriving to the US. CBP process more than 1 million travelers arriving in the US every day.
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