- Existing online-review categories include F, M, J, H-1B, K, Q, R, S, T and U classifications.
- The reported work-history directive covers new and repeat visa applicants, with special scrutiny of H-1B applicants.
- Average visitor visa interview waits reached 201 days in FY 2025.
Checked against travel.state.gov
The U.S. Department of State announced September 17, 2026, that it would extend online presence review to I, TN and TD visa applicants. The new group includes foreign media representatives, USMCA professionals and their dependents.
The department’s instruction is direct: make every social media profile public or open. The announcement gives October 1 as the effective date.
The change adds three visa classifications to a screening process State says it uses to assess inadmissibility, national security and public safety. It does not provide an individual processing-time estimate for applicants in the newly covered groups.
I, TN and TD applicants share the same public-profile instruction
The classifications cover different kinds of applicants:
- I: foreign media representatives.
- TN: professionals applying under the USMCA.
- TD: dependents of USMCA professionals.
The State Department’s announcement says the instruction applies to all applicants in these categories. Its wording directs applicants to change privacy settings on every social media profile to “public” or “open.”
“all applicants for I, TD, and TN nonimmigrant visas are instructed to set the privacy settings on all of their social media profiles to "public" or "open."”
State presents the review as one part of visa screening. The department screens applicants for potential inadmissibility, including national security or public safety concerns.
The expansion follows earlier coverage of other visa groups. The existing categories include A-3, C-3 domestic workers, G-5, F-1, M-1, F-2, M-2, H-1B, H-3 and certain H-4 dependents. J-1 and J-2 exchange visitors, K-1, K-2 and K-3 applicants, Q cultural exchange visitors, R-1 and R-2 religious workers, and S, T and U visa applicants are also covered.
The State Department’s announcement says the expansion takes effect October 1, 2026. The department’s instruction for applicants remains clear: set all social media profiles to public or open.
A separate directive scrutinizes some applicants’ work histories
The online-profile instruction is distinct from a reported State Department cable dated December 2, 2025.
The cable calls for particular scrutiny of H-1B applicants, while covering both new and repeat applicants. It identifies work involving misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety as areas officers should review.
The directive says officers should pursue an ineligibility finding if they find evidence an applicant was responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States. Work in one of the listed fields, by itself, is not described as an automatic basis for ineligibility.
A senior State Department official said the department would not comment on allegedly leaked documents, while defending the administration’s position on expression. The official said: “We do not support aliens coming to the United States to work as censors muzzling Americans”.
Alice Goguen Hunsberger, vice-president of trust and safety at PartnerHero, criticized treating trust-and-safety work as censorship. “I'm alarmed that trust and safety work is being conflated with 'censorship',” she said. She added: “Having global workers at tech companies in [trust and safety] absolutely keeps Americans safer”.
The State Department already requires public profiles for some other visa applicants subject to online review, including students, exchange visitors and H-1B applicants and their dependents. The new I, TN and TD instruction extends that online-review requirement to additional groups; the employment-history directive is a separate screening measure.
Visitor-visa waits and staffing worsened as adjudications climbed
The Government Accountability Office says visitor visa demand rose after the pandemic. Its figures track adjudications, not the number of applications filed or a direct count of demand.
| Measure | Earlier fiscal year | Later fiscal year |
|---|---|---|
| Visitor visa adjudications | 9.2 million in FY 2019; 1.5 million in FY 2021 | 11.7 million in FY 2025 |
| Average visitor visa interview wait | 26 days in FY 2019 | 201 days in FY 2025 |
| Consular officers working on nonimmigrant visas | 1,342 in FY 2024 | 904 in FY 2025 |
The GAO’s review of visa waits links staffing relative to demand with longer interview waits. The number of consular officers working on nonimmigrant visas dropped between FY 2024 and FY 2025, as average visitor interview waits reached 201 days.
Those figures describe visitor-visa adjudications and interview waits. They are not individual processing-time estimates for I, TN or TD applicants, and they do not describe how officers will assess a particular person’s social media profiles.
Visitor visa adjudications rose above the FY 2019 level by FY 2025, while waits lengthened and staffing fell. The State Department’s immediate instruction for I, TN and TD applicants is to set every social media profile to public or open.
