US visa crackdown is an assault on students' rights

We’re demanding our Government make it clear to the US that Irish students should not be treated like criminals for being politically active

Tue, 01 Jul, 2025 - 01:00

Bryan O'Mahony

When I applied for my J1 visa in 2020, I imagined following in the footsteps of generations of Irish students who had made that same journey across the Atlantic. The J1 was not just a summer job programme — it was a rite of passage, a chance to have a cultural experience.

But covid-19 shut those doors temporarily, and now, what’s happening isn’t a pandemic delay — it’s a deliberate, calculated effort to turn Irish students into suspects in the eyes of the US government.

The new visa requirements are forcing students to hand over every social media handle, every comment, every like from the past five years, and this is not only about security — it’s about control. It’s about ensuring only those who conform to a narrow political ideal get to experience America.

Students are deleting years of their online presence — political opinions, jokes, even personal memories —just to avoid being flagged by some opaque algorithm or overzealous consular officer.

What does it say when young Irish people are scrubbing their digital lives clean to appease a country that once prided itself on free speech?

Let’s be clear: this is not happening in a vacuum. The same administration that has rolled back abortion rights, banned books in schools, and targeted LGBTQ+ communities is now turning its attention to international students.

Bryan O'Mahony: 'This digital surveillance is unprecedented and an outrageous violation of privacy.'

They’re not looking for terrorists — they’re looking for dissent. Students are being questioned about tweets and also harmless memes that vaguely criticise US foreign policy, Instagram posts at climate protests, even Facebook groups for Palestinian solidarity.

This digital surveillance is unprecedented and an outrageous violation of privacy. But it’s about much more than privacy. Those expressing views on global political crises are not risks The hypocrisy is staggering. The same US politicians who lecture the world about freedom are building a system where only the most anodyne, apolitical students get to experience America.

They’re telling Irish students — students from a country that has sent its doctors, nurses, and builders to the US for generations — that they’re not welcome unless they pass some ideological purity test.

This is about more than visas. It’s about whether international education can survive in an era of rising nationalism. If we let this stand, what’s next?

Will the US start demanding loyalty oaths? Will they screen applicants for their views on Nato or corporate tax rates? The precedent being set is terrifying.

Students will remember every unjust denial, every invasive question, every instance of political bias. We’re demanding that our Government make it clear that Irish students should not be treated like criminals for being politically active.

Students planning to travel to the US this summer and beyond must act now: censor their social media, delete political content, and vet their followers carefully. Or risk rejection by the country once famed as the land of the free.

To the Irish Government: the time for quiet diplomacy is over. Either stand up for your students, or admit you have not supported them. Students will not be silenced or surveilled into submission.

And to the US officials enforcing these policies: history will not look kindly on this moment. When future generations ask why the special relationship between our countries frayed, they’ll point to this — the day America stopped being the land of the free and started being the land of the fearful.