Visa Applicants Must Make Social Media Accounts Public, Says U.S. Embassy Bridgetown

Caribbean residents applying for a United States Visa must now make their social accounts public, announced the US Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados on Tuesday morning.

According to the post on Facebook, “since 2019, the United States has required visa applicants to provide social media identifiers on immigrant and nonimmigrant visa application forms We use all available information in our visa screening and vetting to identify visa applicants who are inadmissible to the United States, including those who pose a threat to U.S. national security.”

“Effective immediately, all individuals applying for an F, M, or J nonimmigrant visa are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to `public’ to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States,” the post read.

Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used for the last five years on the DS-160 visa application form. Applicants must certify that the information in their visa application is true and correct before they sign and submit. Omitting social media information could lead to visa denial and ineligibility for future visas.

See Facebook post here.