Do you know about your travel history in the last 15 years, including the financial sources which funded your travel?
Do you have a clear employment history and address history during the last 15 years?
How about your social media accounts, all phone numbers and the email addresses which you used in the last 5 years?
Well, you need to know about all of these if you are planning to submit a US Visa application. As per a notification published by the Federal Register, these are some of the questions which are proposed by the US State Department to be asked to the US Visa applicants warranting the extra scrutiny.
While not everyone will face these questions, but, as a part of the “extreme vetting” which Donald Trump, the USA President, has said is vital to prevent the terrorist attacks. These questions would apply to 65,000 people every year, or to about 0.5% of the US visa applicants worldwide.
Enhanced Scrutiny in the Visa Application Process From May 18’ 2017
This extra scrutiny is expected to kick in from 18th May, after a period inviting the public comment. Also, it does not target the nationals of any specific country, rather, these are primarily aimed at potentially the radicalised youth, from, or visiting the troubled areas.
The administration even affirms that as per the existing authorities, the visas may not be denied on the basis of ethnicity, religion, race, gender, political views, national origin or the sexual orientation.
Apart from these questions, the applicants may be questioned about their travel history and would be required to share the details of their international travel as well as the domestic travel, even within their own country, if the consular officer feels that the applicant has been in an area when that area was under the operational control of any terrorist organization.
The administration also made it clear that the consular posts across the globe regularly engross with the law enforcement and the intelligence community partners to clearly identify the sets of the post applicant populations necessitating the augmented scrutiny, suggesting that the local agencies in the applicants’ host countries will play an underlying role in lucidly identifying those necessitating additional scrutiny.
Concluding the explanation of the methodology to be adopted, the federal notification also clarified that the circumstances of the visa applicant will be thoroughly checked, and on the basis of the responses given by the applicant during the visa interview, they will also judge the candidate’s identity and other aspects required by the visa application.