H-1B Applicants Now Required To Make Social Media Profiles Public

WASHINGTON, DC-The United States has widened its online-vetting requirements for foreign workers, directing all H-1B applicants and their H-4 dependents to keep every social-media profile publicly visible starting December 15. The move, announced by the State Department, adds these visa categories to an existing protocol already applied to students and exchange-visitor visas.

The State Department said consular officers will now review applicants’ online presence as part of routine screening. “To facilitate this vetting, all applicants for H-1B and their dependents (H-4), F, M, and J nonimmigrant visas are instructed to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to ‘public’,” the department said, underscoring that visa issuance is “a national security decision.”

The directive aligns with the administration’s broader push to tighten nonimmigrant-worker pathways.