U.S. Secretary
of State Rex Tillerson has directed U.S. diplomatic missions to identify
“populations warranting increased scrutiny” and toughen screening for
visa applicants in those groups, according to diplomatic cables seen by
Reuters.
He has also ordered a “mandatory social
media check” for all applicants who have ever been present in territory
controlled by the Islamic State, in what two former U.S. officials said
would be a broad, labor-intensive expansion of such screening. Social
media screening is now done fairly rarely by consular officials, one of
the former officials said.
Four cables, or memos, issued by
Tillerson over the last two weeks provide insight into how the U.S.
government is implementing what President Donald Trump has called
“extreme vetting” of foreigners entering the United States, a major
campaign promise. The cables also demonstrate the administrative and
logistical hurdles the White House faces in executing its vision.
The memos, which have not been
previously reported, provided instructions for implementing Trump’s
March 6 revised executive order temporarily barring visitors from six
Muslim-majority countries and all refugees, as well as a simultaneous
memorandum mandating enhanced visa screening.
The flurry of cables to U.S.
missions abroad issued strict new guidelines for vetting U.S. visa
applicants, and then retracted some of them in response to U.S. court
rulings that challenged central tenets of Trump’s executive order.
The final cable seen by Reuters, issued
on March 17, leaves in place an instruction to consular chiefs in each
diplomatic mission, or post, to convene working groups of law
enforcement and intelligence officials to “develop a list of criteria
identifying sets of post applicant populations warranting increased
scrutiny.”
Applicants falling within one of these
identified population groups should be considered for higher-level
security screening, according to the March 17 cable.
Those population groups would likely
vary from country to country, according to sources familiar with the
cables, as the March 17 memo does not explicitly provide for
coordination between the embassies.
Trump has said enhanced screening of foreigners is necessary to protect the country against terrorist attacks.
Advocates and immigration lawyers said
the guidance could lead to visa applicants being profiled on the basis
of nationality or religion rather than because they pose an actual
threat to the United States.
“Most posts already have populations
that they look at for fraud and security issues,” said Jay Gairson, a
Seattle-based immigration attorney who has many clients from countries
that would be affected by Trump’s travel ban.
“What this language effectively does is
give the consular posts permission to step away from the focused factors
they have spent years developing and revising, and instead broaden the
search to large groups based on gross factors such as nationality and
religion.”
Virginia Elliott, a spokeswoman for the
State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, said the department was
working to implement Trump’s presidential memorandum “in accordance with
its terms, in an orderly fashion, and in compliance with any relevant
court orders, so as to increase the safety and security of the American
people.”
State Department officials declined to comment on the specifics of the cables, saying they were internal communications.
via Reuters
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