Beginning later this month, travelers from countries that the U.S. State Department says have high visa overstay rates, may be required to post a bond of up to $15,000 when applying for business or tourist visas.
According to a notice recently published in the Federal Registry, the U.S. State Department says it is moving forward with a 12-month pilot program that will make visa applicants from certain countries pay a bond of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 when they apply for a visa.
The move comes after last week when the Trump administration tightened requirements for visa applicants, requiring travelers to submit to an in-person interview, a practice that was not required in the past.
The department is also proposing that all applicants have valid passports from their country of citizenship in order to apply under the Visa Lottery program.
A preview of the bond notice, posted Monday on the Federal Register website, stated that the pilot program will take effect 15 days after its official publication and is intended to protect the U.S. government from financial responsibility if a visitor fails to comply with their visa terms.
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“Aliens applying for visas as temporary visitors for business or pleasure and who are nationals of countries identified by the department as having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or offering citizenship by investment, if the alien obtained citizenship with no residency requirement, may be subject to the pilot program,” the notice reads.
The countries affected have not yet been named, however the department says a list will be published once the program is implemented later this month.
The bond will not be required from travelers from countries that participate in the Visa Waiver Program, and could be waived for others depending on their specific circumstances.
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Visa bonds resurface
The idea to charge visa applicants a bond is not new. It has been considered in the past however was never implemented partly due to how cumbersome posting and then discharging a bond can be and due to public misconceptions.
However, the department insists that this past opinion “is not supported by any recent examples or evidence, as visa bonds have not generally been required in any recent period.”
A similar pilot program was launched in November 2020 during Trump’s first term, but was not fully implemented due to a significant drop in global travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Countries that are expected to make the list include Chad, Eritrea, Haiti, Myanmar and Yemen.
Other countries expected to make the list that the department says has high overstay rates include a number of African countries like Burundi, Djibouti and Togo.
In addition, a provision of the recently passed spending package created a $250 “visa integrity fee” for anyone “approved for a non-immigrant visa that could potentially be reimbursable for those who comply with visa rules. The $250 fee goes into effect on October 1,” Reuters reported.
