All student visa applications to the United States are officially on hold as the Trump administration

considers requiring all foreign students applying to study in the United States to go through

social media vetting. Meanwhile COVID-19 is back. A new variant of the virus has now been

detected among people at U.S. airports as cases begin to rapidly increase in parts of

Asia. And as this happens, worker protests are erupting across China as tens of thousands of

workers in China say that they have not received their full salaries or have not been paid for months.

I'll be going into what's happening. I'm the

Epitimes Senior Investigator reporter Joshua Phillip, and you're listening to Crossroads.

All student visa applications to the United States are currently on hold.

Now, the Trump administration gave orders to all U.S. embassies to freeze every single student visa application.

This happens while Trump is looking to stop government funding to Harvard, and just after a federal judge blocked his ability to stop Harvard's ability to enroll foreign students. Politico said

this. It says the Trump administration is weighing requiring all foreign students applying to

study in the United States to undergo social media vetting a significant expansion of previous

such efforts according to a cable obtained by Politico. And it says, effective immediately,

in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting,

consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor

FMNJ visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued, Septal, which we anticipate in the coming

days the cable states. And according to NAFSA, the Association of International Educators, which

advocates for foreign students, these students generate about $43.8 billion through tuition, housing, living expenses. You could say in some

parts they cover a lot of the costs for the universities. You can also kind of argue that they

prevent a lot of American students from getting into the universities. A point Trump is bringing up.

And if you're dealing with foreign students, what happens when they're done? Well, a lot of them go back home. And so we train other countries, experts, they leave,

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