The Trump administration, amid its ongoing pressing of Harvard, is reportedly mapping out plans to require foreign students applying for visas to undergo more extreme vetting of their social media than previously announced.
The report comes from a State Department cable dated Tuesday obtained by Politico.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio's cable orders pauses of U.S. Embassy and consulate interviews for student visa applications, according to the report.
"Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel, which we anticipate in the coming days," the cable read, according to Politico.
"Septel" is the State Department term for future guidance to come.
The State Department did not respond to Politico's requests for comment.
Trump has called out Harvard for effectively being a money-laundering operation, taking taxpayer dollars and enriching the rest of the world with them.
"Why isn't Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from foreign lands, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay nothing toward their student's education, nor do they ever intend to," Trump posted in a scathing early Sunday morning post on Truth Social. "Nobody told us that!
"We want to know who those foreign students are, a reasonable request since we give Harvard billions of dollars, but Harvard isn't exactly forthcoming. We want those names and countries.
"Harvard has $52,000,000, use it, and stop asking for the federal government to continue granting money to you!"
That figure mentioned by Trump was a reference to Harvard's $53 billion ($53,000,000,000) endowment, but even Trump did not fully expose the massive amount, leaving out three zeros.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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