The U.S. plans to implement invasive social media and personal account vetting for foreign travelers entering the country in 2026. Visitors from 42 countries may soon be required to provide their social media history from up to five years prior upon entry to the country via a Trump Administration proposal that Trump claims is meant to keep the U.S. “safe.” The proposal was posted by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection the Federal Register,
Once implemented, these changes would require additional information to be provided on ESTA applications. This will entail mandatory inclusion of social media history, phone numbers, and email addresses used over the past five years, plus the names, birth dates, birthplaces, residencies, and phone numbers of family members.
The incredibly invasive measures threaten to turn potential travelers away from the U.S. in the coming year, but the U.S.’s tourism industry is already suffering in the face of the second Trump Administration, with visitation down 26% from Canadian travelers, 12% from Germany and nearly 6% from South Korea.
Evidently this new measure is part of Trump’s larger push to overhaul the U.S.’s legal immigration system which includes a mass deportation program, and harsher border control. CNN reports the Trump Administration has made “sweeping changes to nearly every facet of the immigration process, severely tightening every legal and illegal form of entry in the U.S.” over the past 11 months.
Though these changes fly under the guise of safety measures, countries like Germany have issued travel warnings for the U.S., stating travel to the country could be unsafe due to internal political unrest.
