In case you didn’t know, if you’re planning on applying for a visa to enter the US, whether it be for work, study, or holiday, you will need to submit your social media information for it to be screened. Now, if you were to post a lot of things that could be considered problematic, it makes sense that your visa might be rejected, but what about the posts other people made?
Turns out posts made by your friends could also have an impact on your visa status. This was what would-be Harvard student Ismail Ajjawai found out when he arrived in the US, only to have his visa cancelled while he was still in the airport being questioned. It turns out that the posts made by his circle of friends expressed “points of view that oppose the US”, and this is despite the fact that Ajjawai was not tagged in them nor did he interact with them either.
The student has since retained a lawyer in hopes that the decision to cancel his visa could be reversed. That being said, it has been pointed out that Ajjawai’s case isn’t as unique as you might think. It had been previously reported that another student’s visa was rejected based on an image that someone else had posted in a WhatsApp group chat.