US makes hurdles even higher for visa applicants

Rafia Zakaria is the author of "The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan" (Beacon 2015) and "Veil" (Bloomsbury 2017). She is a columnist for Dawn newspaper in Pakistan and The Baffler. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

(CNN) - In the latest in the slew of controversial and restrictive immigration provisions put in place by the Trump administration, the US State Department announced this week that nonimmigrant visa forms had been updated to require "most" visa applicants to provide information about "their social media handles along with other information" going back five years. In a diffident statement to The New York Times, the State Department played down the potential impact of the new requirement, saying: "We already request certain contact information, travel history, family member information, and previous addresses from all visa applicants." The new screening requirements, officials added, were put in place to "protect US citizens."

Social media posts from three or four or five years ago, ones that say something like, "I wish I could get away from here," or, "I wish I lived in New York," could be construed as evidence of the intent to stay, as could any number of the ambiguous or reactive statements that people routinely make on social media platforms.