The US state department has prepared plans to impose bonds as high as $15,000 for some tourism and business visas, according to a draft of a temporary final rule.
The bonds would be issued to visitors from countries with significant overstay rates, under a 12-month pilot program.
It renews an initiative issued by the first Trump administration in November 2020, the month that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election. That rule would have required a $15,000 bond for tourist and business travelers from two dozen countries with 10% or higher overstay rates, mostly in Africa.
The new federal registry notice of the visa bond pilot program is scheduled to be published on 5 August.
“The Pilot Program will enable the Department to assess the operational feasibility of posting, processing, and discharging visa bonds, in coordination with the Department of the Treasury (‘Treasury’) and the Department of Homeland Security (‘DHS’), and to inform any future decision concerning the possible use of visa bonds to ensure nonimmigrants using these visa categories comply with the terms and conditions of their visas and timely depart the United States,” it states.
It said it would announce the countries in question at the “Travel.State.Gov” website no fewer than 15 days before the pilot program takes effect. It also said the list might change, again with 15 days notice.
Tourists and business travelers would receive their bonds back when they depart the US, are naturalized as a citizen or die, according to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement regulations.
The original six-month pilot program was never implemented.
A state department spokesperson told Reuters that countries would be selected based on “high overstay rates, screening and vetting deficiencies, concerns regarding acquisition of citizenship by investment without a residency requirement, and foreign policy considerations”. The department did not provide an estimate on the number of applicants who could be affected.
The Trump administration has cracked down on immigration to the US, including terminating temporary protected status for many people living in the US, and banning immigration visas outright for 12 countries.
The bond policy could build on the president’s travel ban, which went into effect in June, mainly impacting countries in the the Middle East and Africa. Chad, Eritrea, Haiti, Myanmar and Yemen were targeted under the ban and also have high rates of visa overstays. Other countries with high overstay rates include Burundi, Djibouti and Togo, Reuters said, citing federal data from 2023.
The US Travel Association, a group that represents major tourism firms, said in a statement that the scope of the visa bond pilot “appears to be limited”, affecting an estimated 2,000 applicants, likely from countries with low rates of travel to the US.
The state department last month also unveiled new guidance directing US diplomats to review the online activity of foreign students before issuing educational and exchange visas. Students who refuse to unlock their social media profiles will be suspected of hiding the activity from US officials.
The announcement of the new policy comes as data has shown the US is suffering a sharp decline in tourism, including an 11.6% decrease in overseas visitors in March, with the tourism industry expected to lose out on billions of dollars this year due to government actions.
Travel from Canada and Mexico has fallen by 20% year over year, according to the US Travel Association. That group has also warned about the impact of requiring visitors to pay a $250 “visa integrity fee”, which was included in Trump’s sweeping tax bill last month. That fee, if adopted, would be one of the highest in the world for a country to charge.
There have also been increasing accounts of tourists and visitors with valid visas getting detained by Ice, escalating fears that a trip to the US could carry serious risks.
Reuters contributed reporting
