AI screening of J1 students' social media 'prone to error', says Irish-American lobby group
The Ancient Order of Hibernians said it had 'deep concerns' over the US Government directive requiring a review of up to five years of social media activity for every J1 visa applicant, which gives consular officers 'broad discretionary authority'.
'But without clear, objective criteria — and human oversight of AI screenings — we risk eroding the integrity of the J-1 Exchange Visitor Program, chilling participation among young applicants, depriving US government, businesses, educational and cultural institutions of essential summer interns, and weakening the longstanding ties that bind our nations,' its political education chair Neil F Cosgrove said.
Irish students usually travel in large numbers to the United States each summer on J1 visas but, under the Trump administration, they now have to adjust the privacy settings on all their social media profiles to public.
The US State Department recently announced it would now 'conduct a comprehensive and thorough vetting, including online presence, of all student and exchange visitor applicants' under the new guidance.
The Ancient Order of Hibernians said given the way this vetting could be applied, this policy threatens one of America's most successful cultural and economic partnerships with Ireland.
It said that officers may reach 'inconsistent decisions' as terms like 'hostility' and 'advocacy', which are meant to be flagged during screening, lack objective benchmarks.
For students, the five-year look back on their social media will reach back to their early teens and could lead to treating youthful social media activity before maturity as some form of a security threat to the US, it said.
It went on: 'Given the volume of applicants and the vast data set — five years of social media activity per person — we anticipate AI screening will be used extensively and is prone to error.
'In April 2025, PhD student Suguru Onda was wrongly flagged by an AI-driven criminal records check over a minor fishing limit citation in his home country of Japan, leading to an abrupt visa cancellation.'
In the case of Mr Onda, his visa was reinstated but J1 students could find themselves already sent home before an error is corrected.
The group added that the programme helps to fuel critical US sectors such as hospitality and tourism and businesses on the ground would feel the loss of Irish summer workers.
It called on congress and policymakers to exclude any social media content from before someone turned 18, while requiring actual human checks of AI-generated flagged content along with a quarterly report on the use of AI screenings.
Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn (Amlé), formerly the Union of Students in Ireland, has also raised significant concerns about the measures and said they send a "damaging signal".
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