The news broke yesterday, six months exactly before the start of the 2026 Fifa World Cup, which the US is co-hosting with Mexico and Canada.

The Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, a wing of President Donald Trump’s homeland security department, submitted proposed changes to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) per a notice posted in the Federal Register, the official journal of the US government.

“In order to comply with the January 2025 Executive Order 14161 (Protecting the US From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats), CBP is adding social media as a mandatory data element for an ESTA application.

“The data element will require ESTA applicants to provide their social media from the last 5 years,” the agency added.

It’s unclear exactly how the social media reviews would occur or what specifically would cause the government to interfere with a foreigner’s entry into the country.

However, the rule would apply to 42 countries that participate in the “US visa waiver programme”, which includes the UK, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Belgium, Australia and New Zealand.

Fifa has not commented on the matter.

“If you’re going to start disallowing people from coming on vacation to the US because their politics might be a little bit left of centre, the economy is going to be hit in a bad way,” Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Front Office Sports.