US Visa Forms DS-160, 260 Has Social Media Questions Now – Samples | Hacker News Reader

US Visa Forms DS-160, 260 Has Social Media Questions Now – Samples

redbus2us.com

123 pointselliekelly86 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20065142

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20078429

Your links are from 2 months ago, and this submission has already generated a substantial discussion. Why kill it now?

Submissions count as dupes on HN if the story has had significant attention in the last year or so. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. When it's an ongoing story and a submission contains significant new information, we sometimes override that. But it doesn't appear to be the case here.

Marking this post a dupe doesn't mean the story is unimportant. It's just that front page real estate is the scarcest resource on HN. More explanation here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19103247.

I literally could not fill this out without perjuring myself. They say you need to list even unknown/closed/deleted accounts for the last five years. I don't know them all.

This either feels like an out of touch attempt by an older generation who doesn't understand social media (only uses Facebook, etc), or a huge honey trap tricking people into inadvertently "lying" to the USG. They can then use these mistakes to then revoke anyone's status after the fact at a whim (inc. for political reasons).

It reminds me of the pre-ACA health insurance forms, they were designed as huge "gotchas" so they could revoke as needed ("undisclosed pre-existing conditions"). This has that exact same feeling.

Also I wonder if a low/no social media presence will be held against you? I'm assuming it will.

For my fiancée, she deleted her facebook a long time ago, and she never paid attention to the username. We just made a best attempt at guessing the “user name”

Facebook didn't always have vanity names (and I'm not sure if you get them by default), so there's always an out.

I do feel a little for my relatives because I've claimed my last name on a decent number of platforms.

> a huge honey trap to get people to even unintentionally "lie" so the USG can revoke anyone who enters the country's status at any time for any reason (super dangerous).

of course, this is inarguably the case. they are also attempting to change the deportation rules for temporary residents to where you have to prove you haven't left the country in two years (which they can always claim is not proved to their level of acceptability). dark times.

That's even more ridiculous given the level of surveillance on the outbound side they have these days. There's no way someone could leave the country and then re-enter without CBP knowing.

? you can just walk to mexico in San Diego there is no control on US side.

Mexico probably talks to the usa in that case

There are cameras and ALPR readers. And there is data sharing with the Mexican federal police as well.

Submarines?

This seems like the immigration equivalent of literacy tests and voter ID laws.

When we look at world history, how often do you see governments and their agencies pining for a connection to the people they serve, vs. ascribing to themselves the power to arbitrarily enforce life-ruining rules?

>a huge honey trap tricking people into inadvertently "lying" to the USG. They can then use these mistakes to then revoke anyone's status after the fact at a whim (inc. for political reasons).

Doesn't the USG have to prove that you were lying in court? Or can they cite that your information is incorrect and immediately deport you?

An immigration court isn't a real court. It is an executive "court" with appointed judges (essentially employees) and no judicial oversight.

If you think of the three branches of government, immigration proceedings are squarely under the executive, the same branch trying to deport people.

Not true. Immigration determinations are appealable, with certain limitations, to the circuit courts of appeal.

How does that make what I said "not true?" What I said is a well established fact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Office_for_Immigrati...

You can, under limited circumstances, appeal your case to a real court, but the primary court that most people being deported deal with is in the executive branch meaning the executive branch conducts a full deportation from inception to execution in almost all cases.

You stated there was “no judicial oversight.” The possibility of appeal to an Article III court is “judicial oversight.”

The standard require both willfulness and materiality. Forgetting to list an account wouldn’t count. Deliberately omitting an account that, had it been timely revealed, wouldn’t likely have changed the decision also won’t count.

Honestly: lol.

There is not right to entry even with an approved visa into the states. This could give someone the opportunity to find a reason to say no, which is totally within the rights of the official.

You can't sue the US government for denying you entry because you don't have a right to it.

Erm, it's always possible to fill something out without perjuring yourself - simply put "multiple/unknown" in the username box. Now what they do based on that answer is another matter. But as you point out, not having a presence can count against you too, if it is a statistical outlier.

It'll be interesting if this helps push people towards using non-corporate social media. If you're only publishing stuff to your friends, there is nothing to check without the corporate backdoor.

>I literally could not fill this out without perjuring myself.

Same. Thankfully both countries that I'm a national of are in ESTA program. On ESTA forms Social Media is an optional field.

Actually, 18 USC § 1621

> (2) in any declaration, certificate, verification, or statement under penalty of perjury as permitted under section 1746 of title 28, United States Code, willfully subscribes as true any material matter which he does not believe to be true;

If you don't remember the handles, they have to prove that you didn't believe that you made a true declaration. Maybe putting a note of "Various other accounts on various platforms I cannot recall the usernames of" would address that? Not a lawyer.

That statute conveniently lets you forget things, just not blatantly lie. Had a twitter account a year ago that you forgot about? You could forget about it. Tweeted on it yesterday? Not so much.

It's an impossible case to prove, as the bar for perjury if not under oath is much higher. They have to prove that you didn't believe the stated information to be true.

A while back I tried to sign up for Airbnb, but it was impossible to verify my identity without providing social media accounts. (At the time I didn't use Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., and the photo ID upload verification failed.)

Due this experience, I later created Facebook and Instagram profiles populated with minimal personal information and a few friends just so I could prove I existed..

For these new visa requirements, at what point does NOT having social media accounts become suspicious, a red flag warranting more in-depth review? And how useful is the requirement if the natural response is to just create filler social media accounts?

What happens when you lose an account now? Or if you close an account on a service that doesn't reserve usernames (e.g. Twitter)? All of a sudden someone is using "yourname" on twitter to say something the US immigration officers don't like. That's not far fetched at all

You report it.

You expect everyone to monitor all their deleted social media accounts for reusage? For how long? Forever?

How ironic would it be if someone from that agency fell victim to impersonation.

> No, you should NOT answer NONE, if you were or currently are on any of the social media platforms. If you do so, you are lying and it is considered fraud and you can be penalized for it.

I guess this will be the end of traveling to the US after my current VISA expires. This is beyond reasonable. My accounts are all public but I cannot condone such policies.

I’ve probably created at least 50 reddit throwaways in the past 5 years...the platform encourages it. No way I’d be able to remember them all, and I’m sure lots of other people are in the same boat.

I create random usernames/accounts all over the web. Rarely do they have the same names. I also regularly (yearly or so) scrap all of them and start again, sometimes deleting the account if it has that feature, other times just abandoning it and starting new ones.

I've done this as long as online accounts have been a thing, even as far back as early IRC days.

I honestly wouldn't have a clue what half the accounts I used last year were, let alone going back further than that.

> I honestly wouldn't have a clue what half the accounts I used last year were

What's scary to think about is whether you've associated your phone number (which they also ask for) or other PII with any of those old accounts. I don't think it's a stretch to imagine the government having an easier time figuring out your list of old accounts than you would.

Oh I have no doubt they know every account I’ve had. This whole thing reminds me of doing your taxes. They already know all the information, they just want you to tell them again so they can see if/where you lie.

I wonder why the US sees everyone who is not from the US as having a lower worth or being a lower class or something like that. Even the laws are constructed around that...

It's not like that, Within the U.S itself some people have higher worth than others. Look at their medical system for example.

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

When people would pull my girlfriend for random checks, I used to joke:

Some travelers are random

But others are more random than others ;-)

It's not that so much as finding and having people to bully and punish.

Not at all. The US simply distinguished between people who have a right to be here, and people who are allowed to be here by the grace of the government. Its not like the Swiss don’t have to answer these questions. It’s a sovereign entity enforcing its right of exclusion.

It's that kind of lawyering that makes the world a crappy place. While you can always fall back to strict rules, it's a shitty excuse for people to use all the time when they simply want to create an us-versus-them construction.

It’s not lawyering. It’s a fundamental principle of what it means to be a sovereign country. A country is a chunk of land defined by its borders. There is a fundamental difference between people inside and people outside those borders. That difference doesn’t arise from the qualities of the people, but the mere fact of their geographic location.

What differences would there be between those people? They still poop, eat, sleep etc. They probably breathe air as well. A drink things. And pee.

What you are referring to exists within the realm of lawyering. It doesn't change the physical world, humans are still humans, sand is still sand and water is still water.

There's no difference, except some people are on one side of the border and others are on the other side. This is not a legal concept. We merely use laws to express a concept that existed long before the laws. Groups of people controlling territory with defined boundaries, and enforcing those boundaries, is a concept that long predates law. Indeed, it's not even unique to humans--many animals, such as wolves and dogs also demarcate territory with defined boundaries and police those boundaries.

The US is well within its right to decide who should be allowed within its borders, but this requirement will drive away precisely the kind of immigrants that the US (or any other sensible country) might want to attract.

I'm sorry to inform you, but the people who currently run CBP are not only incompetent, but opposed to all immigrants regardless of qualification, especially if they're nonwhite.

The only silver lining is that they still have to ask. In the direction we are going, in a few years they will both know and have access to all your social media accounts.

This is the most prolific and dark comment on this thread.

I think you might be using the word “prolific” incorrectly.

It may well be that in many cases, they do already know, but are asking just so you have a chance to underreport.

This just seems silly.

I applied for a security clearance ages ago, before social media, and I could understand the gotcha style questions and background stuff when applied to a security clearance.

I didn't expect anyone to honestly answer the question about if they had ever been a member of an organization dedicated to overthrowing the US government... but I understood why it was there.

This, this is just dumb and seems like it would produce nothing but bad will.

Yep, applying for a US visa now.

I wonder what the actual changes are, is someone in ICE stalking your FB looking for pro-Hillary memes or something? For anyone who actually needed a security clearance, they wouldn't need you to volunteer it.

I think it is more of a "perjury trap". If after admittance, they need a quick way to kick you out of the country they can dig into things and say you lied on the forms.

Why wouldn't you tell the truth?

Some people simply aren't going to remember every single social media account from the past five years. That's what makes it a potential "gotcha."

It potentially creates this scenario:

Missed one? You "lied." Buh-bye!

Is it correct to assume a Visa application is now just harder to fill out correctly?

For some things, if you tell the truth and something pops up you go into administrative limbo which could take a year to clear up due to backlog.

This is the first of many forays to come by the US government to outsource identity management to Facebook. It’s coming, whether you like it or not.

Can someone familiar with the Visa process describe other personal information that is required so that we can compare the level of invasiveness?

Travel History, relatives etc. This is definitely a step above.

Income. Job. Previous jobs. Previous travel. Previous residence. Entries to the US. Family member's biographic info (e.g. place of birth, DoB, etc). A medical screening in some cases for some communicable diseases (e.g. HIV used to be a ban, no longer, TB still is banned). Asking about spousal relationship (inc. personal questions) if it is a marriage based visa.

This is a HUGE step up. There's nothing even ballpark like this. It is essentially de-anonymizing anonymous internet speech and then using it all against potential immigrants. It also may punish people for not providing information they may no longer even have (e.g. old accounts).

This is like a 10/10 in privacy invasion, the old process was like a 4/10. The medical is likely the most invasive but the doctor only gives them specific information about diseases.

> A medical screening in some cases for some communicable diseases (e.g. HIV used to be a ban, no longer, TB still is banned).

Only for immigrant visas (green card). Ironically you could be spreading TB for years in the US on a student or work visa, but until you can apply for a green card they won't bother to check. I assume this is the legacy of a system where people used to be able to apply for green cards a lot sooner and spent little time on other visas.

"Have you belonged to, contributed to, or worked for any professional, social, or charitable organization?" (list all)

The yes/no section is weird:

Were you a member of the Nazi party?

Have you participated in a genocide, or attempted genocide?

Have you attended a public school in the US as a foreigner after 199x, without paying?

The Nazi one has come in handy for deporting Nazis, even ones that managed to naturalize. It's easier to deport or denaturalize someone if they lied on their documents.

I have no objection to its presence on the form, except that it specifies a date range that ends before my parents were born.

The unpaid school one is an odd juxtaposition with the genocide, eugenics, and involuntary sterilisation questions that precede it.

Will my Visa be Rejected, if I do not share Social Media accounts?

You need to share your social media accounts details for past 5 years. You are not sharing info and they discover your info, you may be tagged for not telling truth and maybe subject to visa rejection.

I legitimately don’t remember most of the usernames I used in HN alone the past year alone. Who doesn’t use throwaway accounts?

I don’t.

But just curious. What type of scenario do you register throwaway accounts for?

I've read accounts of Google or Facebook employees who post on throwaway accounts to prevent being identified.

I have an extremely common name (There are at least 5x people with my name in my city alone). I have one social media account.

Lets say I disclose that social media account. The Immigration agent searches the other social media platforms, and the other people with my name show up. The agent then accuses me of lying on this question.

How do I prove that those other accounts aren't me?

Wow, when is HN getting added to the list? This feels like a form of dystopian future is already here.

How does this work with platforms that create shadow profiles like platforms that gather information from internet and form an entity out of the details without the person knowing it.

Nothing heats up my phone like one of these ad-laden blog or news websites. What exactly is happening under the hood that requires so much power?

The retrospective nature of this seems most problematic: the question is being introduced now but applies to the past 5 years, including to pseudonymous accounts such as Reddit. And whatever service isn't on there now that you feel safe using could be on there tomorrow, just as retrospectively.

That means that services which the user may have considered as platforms for anonymous free speech are being now retrospectively turned into identified speech. This seems to, either by intent or as a side effect, significantly compromise the whole idea of anonymous speech on the internet. For example, there must be many people who, prior and during the 2016 election campaign posted some pretty extreme comments about Donald Trump. Having those now re-interpreted as public statements on their visa applications in the light of him being president could be extremely worrying. There will be people already living in the US who have to fill these forms just to stay and their entire livelihoods could be threatened by not receiving a visa renewal.

In other words, it seems like this decision could have a massive chilling effect on speech everywhere, which is a really big concern.

Foreigners do not have a right to free speech.

It is a grave weakness in the American constitution that the rights of foreign nationals have not been declared or compared to the actual nationals. On this particular regard the Argentina constitution really upended the American one with its preamble declaring: this constitution is made to protect the liberties [...] of all those who wish to live in Argentinian soil.

> Foreigners do not have a right to free speech.

Nope, everyone does https://takecareblog.com/blog/the-first-amendment-belongs-on...

That article doesn't cite any cases showing that the first amendment or any similar constitutional provision applies to non-citizens abroad, and it makes an argument about the Muslim ban that has since been rejected by the Supreme Court's upholding of the ban.

It's definitely true, however, that foreigners in the US have that right, as do US citizens abroad with respect to US government actions where the US government knows or should know that they're a US citizen.

Most rights in the US constitution, including the free speech right, apply to foreigners physically present within the US as well as to US citizens worldwide.

I do wonder if those rights would apply to those foreigners who apply for a US visa while physically in the US (or who are there during the relevant processing stage). Possibly yes because of their location at the time, but possibly not since the visa is not finally adjudicated until the foreigner leaves the US for a visa interview.

> foreigners physically present

I agree that constitutional rights are conditional for foreigners.

> Foreigners do not have a right to free speech.

I’m not sure if any more recent decisions or legislation has changed this, but according to this essay from 2015 [0], you’re probably wrong.

[0] https://scholars.law.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=19...

Those are people that are already in, not the people that are out. There's plenty you can't say as a foreigner on your way in that would be protected for a citizen.

> Foreigners do not have a right to free speech.

This isn't really true. From wikipedia[1]:

>> The government may not criminally punish immigrants based on speech that would be protected if said by a citizen.

Non-citizens can be denied entry to the U.S. based on things they've said that, if said by a citizen/permanent resident, would be "protected" speech under the first amendment. (Which is why the government looking at someone's social media history before deciding whether or not to issue a visa is troubling.)

There's also some grey-area with respect to people on short-term visas and undocumented immigrants because a non-citizen/non-permanent resident doesn't have any permanent "right" to be/remain in the country.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

> The government may not criminally punish immigrants based on speech that would be protected if said by a citizen. > Non-citizens can be denied entry to the U.S. based on things they've said that, if said by a citizen/permanent resident, would be "protected" speech under the first amendment.

Strange to me to draw this distinction. Denying entry is a prohibition exercised by the state. If you can be punished in any way, you don't have a right.

What if there was a GDPR removal request?

United States aren't subject to GDPR.

You still had that account. Yes, if the company complied with your GDPR request, there would be no record that you had it, but as far as the United States are concerned, you have to disclose it.

Thankfully not HN but enough deep links to Reddit and it will join the list methinks.

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