State Dept. to demand tourists' social media history

Photo: AP

Starting this week the State Department will publish new rules for immigrants and visitors to the U.S. As per executive order, they will now be required to divulge their recent social media histories, a key security enhancement the president calls 'extreme vetting.'

People entering the United States will also be asked to list email addresses, phone numbers and international travel during the previous five years. They must also divulge any immigration problems they may have had, whether with the U.S. or any other country.

They will be asked about potential family connections to terrorism, and we know they will not lie about it because that goes against the law. 

In countries were female genital mutilation (FGM) is prevalent, particularly Africa, immigrants from these countries will be directed to a website ensuring that they are aware FGM is illegal in the U.S.

"This upgrade to visa vetting is long-overdue, and it's appropriate to apply it to everyone seeking entry, because terrorism is a worldwide problem. The aim is to try to weed out people with radical or dangerous views," said Jessica Vaughan, director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Vaughan said that she wishes the system would go beyond what is planned in order to determine whether women coming into the country are doing so in order to have a child here. She said it would cut down on "birth tourism" whereby women in the late stages of pregnancy come to the U.S. to have the child who then becomes a U.S. citizen.

Security specialists have demanded more government vetting of people coming into the country but civil liberties groups, such as the ACLU, have been against this idea because they would rather see one terrorist gain entry than deny a hundred non-terrorists from gaining access to our social welfare system.

About 14 million people would be affected by the new vetting program and about 700,000 others would be affected in the immigration system.



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