Key points
- Social media vetting includes NGO workers
- A State Department spokesperson declined to comment over the matter
- Trump administration has already revoked hundreds of visas
ISLAMABAD: The Trump administration has ordered a social media vetting for all US visa applicants who have been to the Gaza Strip on or after January 1, 2007, in the latest push to tighten screening of foreign travelers, Reuters reported.
The order to conduct a social media vetting for all immigrant and non-immigrant visas should include non-governmental organisation workers as well as individuals who have been in the Palestinian enclave for any length of time in an official or diplomatic capacity, Reuters cited an internal State Department cable as saying.
Hundreds of visas revoked
The cable was sent to all US diplomatic and consular posts, Reuters reported.
The step comes as US President Donald Trump’s administration has revoked hundreds of visas across the country especially students.
The cable dated April 17 was signed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said in late March that he may have revoked more than 300 visas already, Reuters reported.
A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on internal communications when asked about the cable, but said every prospective traveler to the US undergoes extensive interagency security vetting, according to Reuters.
Overnight Israeli strikes
Gaza’s civil defence agency has said that 15 Palestinians, including 10 from the same family, had been killed in two overnight Israeli strikes.
AFP cited civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal as saying, “Our crews recovered the bodies of 10 martyrs and a large number of injured from the house of the Baraka family and the neighbouring houses targeted by the Israeli occupation forces in the Bani Suhaila area east of Khan Yunis,” in the southern Gaza Strip.
