In order to improve security and guarantee that only eligible individuals enter the United States, the U.S. Embassy in Ghana has said that it has implemented stricter screening standards for applicants for student visas.
The US Embassy’s Consul General, Elliot Fertik, confirmed the resumption of arranging appointments for new student visas, along with additional verification procedures, in an interview on Citi Eyewitness News on Thursday, June 26.
“We recently resumed the scheduling of new student visa appointments, but as part of this process, we are now engaged in enhanced vetting of applicants’ online presence and social media accounts,” he explained.
Fertik underlined that the goal of these more thorough screenings is to make sure that candidates are not only eligible but also do not represent a threat to American national security.
“This is something we have always done, actually. We’ve always reserved the right to engage in looking at the person’s entire picture—whether their online presence, the answers they gave during the interview, documents, or anything else,” he said.
The heightened attention being paid to applicants’ digital footprints, especially their social media activity, is new, he continued. Applicants must now make their social media accounts publicly available before their visa interviews in order to substantiate this.