Additional Vetting of U.S. Visa and Immigration Benefit Applicants Announced

Following its Dec. 2, 2025 announcement to pause adjudication of certain U.S. immigration benefits applications filed by applicants born in or nationals of one of the 19 Travel Ban Countries, the U.S. government has announced enhanced vetting policies for two additional classes of applicants.

Enhanced Vetting of H-1B/H-4 applicants

On Dec. 3, 2025, U.S. Department of State (DOS) announced that beginning December 15, 2025, it will expand its “online presence review” to include all H‑1B visa applicants and their dependents holding H‑4 visas. This additional vetting applies to all applicants regardless of their country of birth or nationality. This means that in addition to disclosure of social media usernames/handles over the past five years, H-1B and H-4 visa applicants must now set all their social-media profiles to “public” so that consular officers can review publicly available content such as posts, comments, photos, and connections. This online vetting practice has been in place since June 2025 for nonimmigrant student and exchange-visitor categories (F, M, J), and the expansion to H-1B/H-4 visa applicants brings employment-based applicants under the same scrutiny.

The stated aim of the updated policy is to allow visa adjudicators to use “all available information” to flag applicants who might pose national-security or public-safety risks. Due to the additional burden this will place on consular officers, this change may also cause longer processing times, additional administrative reviews, or even visa denials based on online content or affiliations.

Enhanced Vetting of EAD applicants

On Dec. 4, 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) updated its Policy Manual to reduce the validity period of Employment Authorization cards (EAD cards) from five (5) years to eighteen (18) months.

The validity of EAD cards was increased to five (5) years in Nov. 2023, in response to continued and increasing adjudication delays that, despite early filing, would cause work authorization gaps.  The 2023 change also helped the agency reduce its backlog over time.

Starting Dec. 5, 2025, the EAD validity period will be reduced back to 18 months for applications filed by the following categories of foreign nationals:

• Admitted as Refugees or granted Asylum,
• Granted withholding of deportation/removal,
• With pending applications for asylum or withholding of removal,
• With pending applications for Adjustment of Status (I-485 applicants), and
• With pending applications for suspension of deportation, cancellation of removal, or relief under NACARA.

This new policy is being implemented for DHS to conduct “more frequent vetting of aliens who apply for authorization to work in the United States,” and will apply no matter the applicant’s country of birth or citizenship. The change will apply to EAD applications (initial or renewal) that are pending or filed on/after December 05, 2025.

While certain impacted EAD holders might be able to rely on other types of work authorization while their EAD applications are pending (e.g., if they also have a valid temporary work status such as H-1B or L-1), many do not have this option.  This new EAD Vetting policy, combined with the agency’s recent policy change to eliminate the automatic 540-day EAD extension for renewal applicants, will likely cause adjudication backlogs and, consequently, longer work authorization gaps between EAD periods for those impacted EAD holders.  It is therefore critical for foreign nationals and their U.S. employers to ensure timely filing of EAD renewals as early as feasible within the 6-month filing window prior to expiration, and to discuss contingency plans should EAD renewals not be approved in time (including, whenever available, continued extension of underlying temporary nonimmigrant work status).

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