Transcript of the above video: 

There has been some recent news regarding bring social media protocols associated with Visa applications in a Non-immigrant context that I wanted to discuss in the Immigrant context. Let me jump into it here.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: US Visa Applicants must make social media accounts public. Quoting directly: "Applicants for three types of Non-immigrant Visas to the United States must set their social media accounts to public mode as part of the submission process now in effect, the US Embassy in Thailand said on Monday. Quote: "Effective immediately all individuals applying for an F, M or J Non-immigrant Visa, are requested to adjust the privacy settings on all of their social media accounts to 'public' to facilitate vetting necessary to establish their identity and admissibility to the United States under US Law," the Embassy said on its social media outlets. The F visa is for students, M for vocational students including those attending training in the US, and J classification is for visitors on Exchange programs." 

So what are we talking about? Well that's the Non-immigrant categories; that is for students; that's for vocational workers; that's for exchange students.

Strictly speaking, this policy did not pertain to the Immigrant Visas. Now one thing to understand, for years now we have been dealing with especially on the Department of State forms associated with applications for like the K-1 Visa, the DS-160, as well as even the Immigrant Spousal Visas like for the CR-1 and the IR-1, in theory the K-3 would deal with a DS-160 as well, but we have already had to deal with disclosure of social media accounts, the information associated with them. Now whether or not this protocol, this policy, will bleed over into the Immigrant categories - now the K-1 Visa strictly speaking is a Non-immigrant Visa but it is what's called a 'dual intent' Visa, so folks that use the K-1 can have the dual intention of going there for only the 90 days of it's usage, but also to get married and file for a Green Card - but setting that aside, it's already required to disclose social media presence in those type of Visa applications. Whether or not they are going to start saying "hey, you need to go ahead and now switch those from 'private' to 'public' depending on your circumstances, I don't know. From prior experience, especially the "Trump Muslim Ban" going back to his first Administration, I made a lot of videos at the time where people said, "oh it is only going to impact this certain set of countries," well it ended up having broader ramifications. I can see a scenario playing out moving forward where adjudicating Consular Officers say, "hey we see that you disclosed your Facebook account, but we can't see into it because it is set to 'private'. You need to set that to 'public' in order for us to have a look at it before we finish processing your Visa Application so you can get your Immigrant Spousal Visa to the United States".

I am not saying that is a foregone conclusion but based on the totality of the circumstances before me at this particular moment, I could definitely see that becoming something in the future that they routinely ask for. Again, that is some level of speculation on my part but that is based on 17 years of working and practicing US Immigration Law from here in the Kingdom of Thailand.