The United States is advancing proposals that would greatly expand digital vetting for tourists, students, workers and journalists, demanding up to ten years of email addresses and five years of social media history, along with extensive phone, family and metadata details that could shape decisions on ESTA and visa approvals. Critics including Ben Rapp, Jeramie Scott, Patrick Eddington and Amund Trellevik warn that these sweeping checks amount to a vast fishing expedition that enables AI driven profiling, risks retaliation from European partners and may chill travel to the United States ahead of the World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada.Donald Trump and supporters of the initiative argue that deeper scrutiny of social media and communications data is necessary to keep out the “wrong kind of people,” but privacy advocates and affected travelers counter that the opaque, unpredictable process can punish lawful speech and professional activity, as seen in the unexplained denial of Trellevik’s visa despite largely innocuous online content. The measures, drafted by the Department of Homeland Security and US Customs and Border Protection and now in a public consultation phase, build on post 2019 rules requiring disclosure of social media accounts and could soon force millions of visitors to trade away broad access to their digital lives in exchange for the possibility, not the guarantee, of entering the country.