As part of its crackdown on immigration, the US State Department has announced that it will start requiring travellers from certain countries to pay bonds of up to $15,000 to enter the United States.
The 12-month pilot programme affects B-1 business and B-2 tourism visas and starts on August 20. It targets travellers from countries with historically higher rates of visa overstays, according to the department’s temporary final rule published on August 5 in the Federal Register. If visitors comply with the terms of the bond, the amount will be refunded.
On Tuesday, the State Department confirmed that visitors from Zambia and Malawi would be the first to be targeted under the new policy.
The rule follows a travel ban on nationals from 12 countries and other new fees being levied on US visitors.
The new rule targets citizens from countries with high visa overstays. It excludes visitors from Mexico, Canada and the more than 40 countries enrolled in the US Visa Waiver Program. That programme allows citizens to travel to the US for tourism or business for up to 90 days without a visa.
Here’s what else to know about the mechanics of the proposal and the history of the idea.
What is a visa bond?
A visa bond is a financial guarantee that some countries require for certain foreign nationals applying for temporary visas to ensure visa holders adhere to the terms of their visa – particularly the length of stay.
Each year, the US grants thousands of temporary nonimmigrant visas to foreign students, tourists and workers. The visas can last from a few weeks to several years.
If a nonimmigrant remains in the US longer than their authorised period of admission, it’s known as a visa overstay.
Most countries require proof of funds for visas but don’t use a system where visitors have to post a refundable bond to enter. New Zealand previously had a visa bond policy to manage overstays, but it is no longer in effect. In 2013, the United Kingdom tried and subsequently scrapped a plan to require a bond on visitors from certain “high-risk” countries.
How much are the bonds?
The proposed US bonds have three tiers: $5,000, $10,000 and $15,000.
The State Department notice said it expects about 2,000 visa applicants will need to post visa bonds during the programme.
“If the average bond is $10,000 (from options of $5,000, $10,000, and $15,000), the initial cost to aliens of bonds for 2,000 visa applicants will be $20,000,000,” the notice said.
Bond amounts will be set by consular officers who will also consider an applicant’s “personal circumstances,” including their reason for travel, employment, income, skills and education.
Consular officers will be able to request waivers in limited circumstances, the department said, such as travel for US government employees or urgent humanitarian needs.
Has this been tried before?
Trump’s State Department tried a visa bonds programme in 2020, but it was not fully implemented because of a decrease in global travel during the COVID-19 pandemic.
State Department guidance historically discouraged consular officers from requiring visa bonds, because the process was “cumbersome” and could lead to misperceptions by the public, the State Department’s notice said.
However, the department said this view “is not supported by any recent examples or evidence, as visa bonds have not generally been required in any recent period, notwithstanding a 2020 pilot programme that did not provide any substantive data.”
The number of noncitizens who arrived on a visa with no matching departure data “demonstrates that hundreds of thousands of nonimmigrant visitors fail to timely depart in accord with the terms of their visitor visa,” the notice said, citing government reports since 2000.
Which countries would be affected?
Malawi and Zambia are the first two countries subject to visa bonds, the State Department announced on August 5.
“Beginning August 20, nationals of Malawi and Zambia applying for B-1, B-2 business and tourist visas will be required to post a bond of up to $15,000,” Tammy Bruce, a State Department spokesperson, said.
Additional countries subject to the bond programme will be identified based on high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or countries that offer Citizenship by Investment. The department said the list may be revised throughout the programme.
Citizenship by Investment programmes essentially sell citizenship to noncitizens by having them invest in the country’s economy and have no residency requirement. Some countries with these programmes include Antigua & Barbuda, Austria, Jordan, St Lucia and Turkiye.
Which countries have high visa overstay rates?
In fiscal year 2023, numerous countries in Africa, as well as Haiti, Laos, Myanmar and Yemen, recorded the highest overstay rates for people visiting on B-1 and B-2 visas, a Department of Homeland Security Overstay Report found.
Many of the 12 countries targeted by Trump’s travel ban, including Chad and Eritrea, also have high rates of visa overstays.
What percentage of migrants in the country illegally are visa overstays?
In its report to Congress, the DHS said it anticipated 39 million departures for visa holders in fiscal year 2023; there were about 400,000 visa overstays that year.
Visa overstayers are estimated to account for a sizable proportion of migrants in the US illegally, which partly explains the increase in the country’s unauthorised migrant population, according to a report by the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank.
Drawing on data from the 1990s, the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) concluded in 2002 that about 41 percent of migrants in the country illegally are visa overstayers. That figure became the most widely quoted percentage, echoed by politicians including John Carter, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
In 2003, the INS reprocessed the data and estimated that 33 percent of the undocumented migrant population in the nation in 2000 had overstayed their visas.
In more recent years, the Center for Migration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank studying international migration, found that about 42 percent of the 2014 population in the country without proper documentation were overstayers. The centre cited this figure in 2024.
Identifying and tracking visa overstays remains tricky, especially as the nature and origin of border crossers have changed, Jeffrey Passel, a Pew Research Center senior demographer, said. “In simple terms, the way we make our estimates doesn’t take into account mode of entry and the underlying data doesn’t have this information either.”
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