The U.S. State De­part­ment said Wednes­day it is restart­ing the sus­pend­ed process for for­eign­ers ap­ply­ing for stu­dent visas but all ap­pli­cants will now be re­quired to un­lock their so­cial me­dia ac­counts for gov­ern­ment re­view.

The de­part­ment said con­sular of­fi­cers will be on the look­out for posts and mes­sages that could be deemed hos­tile to the U.S., its gov­ern­ment, cul­ture, in­sti­tu­tions or found­ing prin­ci­ples.

In a no­tice made pub­lic Wednes­day, the de­part­ment said it had re­scind­ed its May sus­pen­sion of stu­dent visa pro­cess­ing but said new ap­pli­cants who refuse to set their so­cial me­dia ac­counts to “pub­lic” and al­low them to be re­viewed may be re­ject­ed. It said a re­fusal to do so could be a sign they are try­ing to evade the re­quire­ment or hide their on­line ac­tiv­i­ty.

“Un­der new guid­ance, con­sular of­fi­cers will con­duct a com­pre­hen­sive and thor­ough vet­ting of all stu­dent and ex­change vis­i­tor ap­pli­cants,” the de­part­ment said in a state­ment.

“To fa­cil­i­tate this vet­ting” ap­pli­cants “will be asked to ad­just the pri­va­cy set­tings on all their so­cial me­dia pro­files to ‘pub­lic,’” it said. “The en­hanced so­cial me­dia vet­ting will en­sure we are prop­er­ly screen­ing every sin­gle per­son at­tempt­ing to vis­it our coun­try.”

In in­ter­nal guid­ance sent to con­sular of­fi­cers, the de­part­ment said they should be look­ing for “any in­di­ca­tions of hos­til­i­ty to­ward the cit­i­zens, cul­ture, gov­ern­ment, in­sti­tu­tions, or found­ing prin­ci­ples of the Unit­ed States.” — WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by MATTHEW LEE | As­so­ci­at­ed Press