The U.S. State Department has quietly issued an internal directive that extends mandatory online-presence screening to two of the visa categories most heavily used by Indians—H-1B for specialty workers and H-4 for their dependent spouses and children. Students and exchange visitors (F, M and J visas) have been subject to social-media checks since 2020, but the new policy—effective 15 December 2025—formally instructs consular officers to pause adjudication until every public social-media account listed in the DS-160 is reviewed.
Why now? Washington says “every visa decision is a national-security decision”. Investigators told Congress earlier this year that inconsistent vetting of professional-visa holders could create blind spots. Making profiles public, officials argue, speeds up automated red-flag detection. Civil-liberties groups counter that forced disclosure conflates free speech with security risk and may punish legitimate dissent. A 2024 Georgetown Law study found a higher refusal rate for applicants whose posts were misunderstood by algorithmic filters.
![U.S. will scan social-media of all H-1B, H-4 and student-visa applicants from 15 December]()
Practical impact for Indians is large: India receives roughly 70 % of the 85,000 new H-1B approvals issued each year and accounts for 200,000-plus active F-1 students. Immigration lawyers are already circulating checklists—sync LinkedIn job titles with the LCA, scrub outdated tweets that conflict with “temporary intent”, standardise names across Facebook and Instagram. Staffing firms fear fresh RFEs (Requests for Evidence) if discrepancies appear between a candidate’s online résumé and petition paperwork.
Companies with large deputation programmes are building compliance protocols. Tata Consultancy Services, for example, has asked employees awaiting stamping to share screenshots of public settings; Infosys is creating a ‘social-media hygiene’ webinar for dependents. Universities are briefing spring-2026 admittees on acceptable political content and warning against last-minute privacy toggles that could trigger administrative processing.
Longer term, the move illustrates a broader trend: tech-enabled risk scoring is becoming a permanent layer of mobility compliance. Human-resources teams in India should expect social-media audits to spill over to other destinations as security-first politics gain ground in many OECD countries.
Why now? Washington says “every visa decision is a national-security decision”. Investigators told Congress earlier this year that inconsistent vetting of professional-visa holders could create blind spots. Making profiles public, officials argue, speeds up automated red-flag detection. Civil-liberties groups counter that forced disclosure conflates free speech with security risk and may punish legitimate dissent. A 2024 Georgetown Law study found a higher refusal rate for applicants whose posts were misunderstood by algorithmic filters.
Practical impact for Indians is large: India receives roughly 70 % of the 85,000 new H-1B approvals issued each year and accounts for 200,000-plus active F-1 students. Immigration lawyers are already circulating checklists—sync LinkedIn job titles with the LCA, scrub outdated tweets that conflict with “temporary intent”, standardise names across Facebook and Instagram. Staffing firms fear fresh RFEs (Requests for Evidence) if discrepancies appear between a candidate’s online résumé and petition paperwork.
Companies with large deputation programmes are building compliance protocols. Tata Consultancy Services, for example, has asked employees awaiting stamping to share screenshots of public settings; Infosys is creating a ‘social-media hygiene’ webinar for dependents. Universities are briefing spring-2026 admittees on acceptable political content and warning against last-minute privacy toggles that could trigger administrative processing.
Longer term, the move illustrates a broader trend: tech-enabled risk scoring is becoming a permanent layer of mobility compliance. Human-resources teams in India should expect social-media audits to spill over to other destinations as security-first politics gain ground in many OECD countries.
