DENVER — The Trump Administration is considering requiring tourists from dozens of countries to provide five years of social media history to enter the United States.
CNN reports this rule would apply to tourists using the Electronic System for Travel Authorization, or ESTA, visa waiver program for travel to the U.S. under 90 days and would apply to travelers from the United Kingdom, Japan, Israel, and many European countries.
“(It is) kind of an interesting ask for a country that is democratic and has so many rights and freedoms for the people that live here, and those freedoms also extend to our visitors,” said Christopher Jennings, professor and department chair of the Department of Journalism and Media Production at Metropolitan State University of Denver. “By putting this through Homeland Security and having people supply this information before they even enter the country, it puts those rights in a realm of, 'Well, OK, you don't have these rights yet.'”
Jennings said the proposal comes at a time when the U.S. is preparing to host huge numbers of tourists over the next few years for the FIFA World Cup games in 2026 and the Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
According to CNN, in June, the State Department told embassies and consulates they may vet applicants for student visas for “hostile attitudes towards our citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles.”
Jennings said there will likely be an impact to tourism.
“We've already seen this impact before," he said. "A lot of Canadians, for example, have spoken out about specifically not traveling to the United States previously because of tariffs, but now with these restrictions of asking for this type of information is also a glaring factor in people not wanting to cross the border or to enter the United States,” Jennings said. “I taught in China... They asked me to supply what I was going to teach, and they had to review my teaching materials. And to that, there was some censorship there, but in all intents and purposes, they made it very clear that I could use social media… And so even in China — very authoritarian and dictatorship type of country where you would expect something like this to happen — they even allow people in countries that have different rules and policies to still kind of meet halfway."
The Department of Homeland Security is seeking public comments on the proposal via the Federal Register over a 60-day period.
