The United States Department of State has directed that all Nigerian visa applicants must provide a five-year history of their social media activity or risk being denied entry.

In an update on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, the US Mission in Nigeria stressed that applicants who fail to disclose their social media accounts face visa denial and possible ineligibility for future applications.

“Visa applicants are required to list all social media usernames or handles of every platform they have used in the last five years on the DS-160 visa application form. Applicants certify that the information in their application is true before submission. Omitting social media information could result in visa denial and ineligibility for future visas,” the Mission stated.

The directive comes amid a raft of restrictive immigration and deportation policies introduced under President Donald Trump, who began his second term in January 2025.

Last month, the US Mission in Nigeria expanded its scrutiny of applicants’ online presence. Initially applied to F, M, and J non-immigrant visas, the policy now covers all visa categories. In July, the Mission also limited non-immigrant and non-diplomatic visas for Nigerians to a single entry with a three-month validity period, in line with Trump’s reciprocal visa policy affecting several countries.

The Mission clarified that visas issued before July 8, 2025, remain valid. It reiterated that these requirements are designed to safeguard the integrity of the US immigration system.

President Trump has pledged mass deportations of undocumented migrants, labelling them “criminal aliens.” Raids have already taken place in homes, schools, workplaces, and shopping centres across the US, leading to deportations to countries including India and Guatemala.

While Trump’s hard-line measures have sparked mixed reactions, Nigerian migration to the US continues to be significant. As of 2015, approximately 376,000 Nigerians lived in the US, making Nigeria the largest source of African migration. Nigerians in the US also remain key contributors to the economy back home, remitting over $20 billion annually, according to World Bank data from 2023.