Visiting the US as a tourist could soon become significantly more onerous under a new plan being mulled by the Trump administration.
According to a Tuesday report in the New York Times, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) this week filed a new proposal that would force visitors to submit up to five years' worth of social media posts for inspection before being allowed to enter the country.
In addition to social media history, CPB says it plans to ask prospective tourists to provide them with email addresses they've used over the last decade, as well as "the names, birth dates, places of residence, and birthplaces of parents, spouses, siblings, and children."
The policy would apply even to citizens of countries that have long been US allies, including the UK, Germany, Australia, and Japan, which have long been exempt from visa requirements.
Sophia Cope, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told the Times that the CBP policy would "exacerbate civil liberties harms."
Cope added that such policies have "not proven effective at finding terrorists and other bad guys" but have instead "chilled the free speech and invaded the privacy of innocent travelers, along with that of their American family, friends and colleagues."
Journalist Bethany Allen, head of China investigations at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, expressed shock that the US would take such drastic measures to scrutinize the social media posts of tourists.
"Wow," she wrote in a post on X, "even China doesn't do this."
In addition to concerns about civil liberties violations, there are also worries about what the new policy would do to the US tourism industry.
The Times noted in its report that several tourism-dependent businesses last month signed a letter opposing an administration proposal to collect a $250 "visa integrity fee," and one travel industry official told the paper that the CBP's new proposal appears to be "a significant escalation in traveler vetting."
The American tourism industry has already taken a blow during President Donald Trump's second term, even without a policy of forcing tourists to share their social media history.
A report released on Wednesday from Democrats on the Senate's Joint Economic Committee (JEC) found that US businesses that have long depended on tourism from Canada to stay afloat have been getting hit hard, as Canadian tourists stay away in protest of Trump's trade war against their country.
Overall, the report found that "the number of passenger vehicles crossing the US-Canada border declined by nearly 20% compared to the same time period in 2024, with some states seeing declines as large as 27%."
Elizabeth Guerin, owner of New Hampshire-based gift shop Fiddleheads, told the JEC that Canadians used to make up to a quarter of her custom base, but now "I can probably count the number of Canadian visitors on one hand."
Christa Bowdish, owner of the Vermont-based Old Stagecoach Inn, told the JEC that she feared a long-term loss in Canadian customers, even if Trump ended his feud with the nation tomorrow.
"This is long-lasting damage to a relationship and emotional damage takes time to heal," she said. "While people aren’t visiting Vermont, they’ll be finding new places to visit, making new memories, building new family traditions, and we will not recapture all of that."
Trump Plan Would Force Tourists to Share Years of Social Media Posts Before Entering US
(www.commondreams.org)
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