Posted on 10/03/2025 6:53:50 AM PDT by marcusmaximus
Four Indian students were rejected for U.S. visas after undergoing a new Trump-era social media screening. All were told they had failed to prove ties to India.
Kaushik Raj felt like his future was falling into place. He’d just won a $100,000 scholarship to pursue a graduate degree in journalism at Columbia University. A U.S. visa was the only thing that stood between him and a new life in New York.
Raj, 27, wasn’t overly concerned. He had completed every stage of the traditional application process. As a last step, he had to allow American authorities to vet his “online presence.”
He wasn’t too active on social media, he said, and refrained from publicizing his personal feelings about hot-button global issues, such as Israel’s war in Gaza. He had, however, spent four years working as a journalist and would post links to his stories, which often focused on hate crimes and were critical of India’s treatment of its Muslim minority.
On Aug. 21, two months after the new social media screening policy was announced by the Trump administration, he received a letter from the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi telling him his application had been rejected. The letter, which he shared with The Washington Post, did not cite his online activity. Instead, it stated he had not demonstrated sufficient ties to India that would “compel” him to return home after his time in the United States.
It came as a shock to Raj, who was born and raised in India and had made clear during the application process that his entire family lives in the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
The horror, the horror.
Doesn’t India spend any money on higher education? There must be a place he can learn journalism that includes his mother-tongue with its nuances for reading. Stay home and MIGA.
“..good humor and common sense.Food was good, women were hot and friendly, music was awesome”
still sounds like that in Middle Tennessee, south of Davison County, y’all would appreciate it, especially in the ‘Cownee’ (rural county areas)
Yeah, we don't actually need any more jihadis infecting our country. Good riddance.
He's an aspiring H1B hactivist with the amazing ability to read other people's minds, of Americans 10,000 miles away no less, but sadly, no ability to read the tea leaves.
All we need now is to make H1B visas so prohibitively expensive to sponsoring firms that tech companies will start hiring Americans rather than importing east or south Asian coolies who work for peanuts.
Similarly, when I was a kid, I lived in a town without any Mexican or Central American "guest workers" or illegals. Yet somehow, berries and vegetables from the local farms were picked, landscaping work got done, and driveways got paved. Similarly, the white collar jobs - from punch card computer programmers on down - all got filled just fine without H1B programs importing Chinese or Pakistanis.
Maybe a few thousand would be okay but we really shouldn’t allow more than that. Getting rid of them will cause schools to lower tuition to attract more Americans
That might be true if universities did not receive preferentaial tax treatment that is deferred by US citizen taxes. Not to mention Federal grant $.
Americans should not be subsidizing college or university spots for foreign students.
Americans have fewer opportunities because of these students and the Universities are orienting offerings and campus activities to encourage foreign students for monetary reasons.
Our universities have become bloated and their focus is distorted. The real purpose of higher education is no longer delivering education and value to enrolled students. It is instead indoctrination and adherence to curated “truths” a discouragement of any actual curiosity or discussion. The business aspect of foreign governments, foreign students and leftist funding has caused this realignment.
If that assassin was a few centimeters closer he would have killed Trump and we would have had Nicki Haley as Republican nominee (seeing as she had the second most amount of delegates) and she would have been running against Kamala
So an Indian woman would be in charge of the most powerful country on Earth . Kind of weird to think about
They spend plenty of money on higher education. There are scores if not hundreds of universities in India. They are also more heavily regulated via something called the University Grants Commission (UGC). The syllabus of every course at every institution must be listed and reviewed by the UGC.
“He’d just won a $100,000 scholarship to pursue a graduate degree in journalism at Columbia”
There aren’t enough home grown terrorist loving America hating urinalists at Columbia that we have to import them? Who the f gave him the scholarship?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.