The new form ‘Supplemental questions for visa applicants’ requires employment and residence details from the last 15 years.
The US government has introduced a new questionnaire that would require more information from the US visa applicants. The Office of Management and Budget passed the proposal to add more documentation from the foreign travelers on May 23.
According to the latest additions, the immigration authorities can demand social networking handles of the visa aspirants. In addition, the applicants now have to provide numbers of all previous passports held by them.
Reportedly, some sections in the government and industry criticized the proposed changes. Influencers from the field of education argued that the new changes would add to unnecessary delays in processing visa applications. However, the administration was firm in passing the proposed changes.
The new form Supplemental questions for visa applicants makes it mandatory for the applicant to share: all countries he has traveled in the last 15 years; all addresses where he has lived for the last 15 years; provide all phone numbers used in the last five years, including primary, secondary, work, home, and mobile numbers; provide all email addresses used in the last five years; unique user name for any websites or applications used to create or share content within last five years; information of employers in the 15 years.
Furthermore, the officials can request for more information if they think “that such information is required to confirm identity or conduct more rigorous national security vetting,” the State Department official said on Wednesday, Reuters reported.
In the wake of these tougher rules for foreigners to travel to the US, some experts are of the view that this would induce people to make honest mistakes, as they might not remember details from past 15 years. “The United States has one of the most stringent visa application processes in the world,” Babak Yousefzadeh, a San Francisco-based attorney, told the news agency. “The need for tightening the application process further is really unknown and unclear.