Extreme Vetting, Including Social Media Info, Approved By Trump Admin

A supplemental questionnaire given to some applicants applying for visas to the United States will ask them to disclose any public social media accounts they have had for the past five years as part of an extreme vetting process.

The questionnaire asks visitors for their travel history for the past 15 years, previous passports, employment history for the past 15 years and any public social media profiles, email addresses and telephone numbers for the past five years. While employment and travel history was always requested on visa applications, it was not requested for such a lengthy period of time.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly had said that the government may start asking for social media profiles and telephone contact information as part of an extreme vetting procedure, something President Donald Trump had promised to implement while campaigning.

Kelly made the remarks after the Trump administration first announced the travel ban that temporarily stopped residents of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The order was eventually rescinded by the administration before it issued a less extreme version of the order, which was also struck down in the courts. The Supreme Court will now decide whether to hear the case at the request of the government.

The questionnaire was approved by the Office of Management and Budget on May 23, Reuters reported. As the news agency reports, the additional questions received a lot of criticism during the public comment period. A State Department official told Reuters that the additional information would be requested when it determines "that such information is required to confirm identity or conduct more rigorous national security vetting."

The American Civil Liberties Union submitted a nine-page letter during the public comment period, sharply criticizing the new questions and saying that they should not be adopted.

"Without even meeting the standards for an emergency justification, these proposed questions reach deep into the histories of visa applicants without any parameters or guidance regarding when, how, and to whom these questions will apply, creating an environment ripe for profiling and discrimination," the ACLU said.

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