U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio provides a media briefing throughout the ASEAN overseas ministers’ assembly on the in Kuala Lumpur Friday, Malaysia, on July 11, 2025.
Mandel Ngan/Pool AFP/AP
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Mandel Ngan/Pool AFP/AP
The State Division is proposing requiring candidates for enterprise and vacationer visas to submit a bond of as much as $15,000 to enter the US, a transfer which will make the method unaffordable for a lot of.
In a discover to be revealed within the Federal Register on Tuesday, the division stated it will begin a 12-month pilot program underneath which individuals from nations deemed to have excessive overstay charges and poor inside doc safety controls could possibly be required to submit bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 once they apply for a visa.
The proposal comes because the Trump administration is tightening necessities for visa candidates. Final week, the State Division introduced that many visa renewal candidates must undergo an extra in-person interview, one thing that was not required previously. As well as, the division is proposing that candidates for the Visa Range Lottery program have legitimate passports from their nation of citizenship.
A preview of the bond discover, which was posted on the Federal Register web site on Monday, stated the pilot program would take impact inside 15 days of its formal publication and is critical to make sure that the U.S. authorities will not be financially liable if a customer doesn’t adjust to the phrases of his or her visa.
“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 discover stated.
The nations affected might be listed as soon as this system takes impact, it stated. The bond could possibly be waived relying on an applicant’s particular person circumstances.
The bond wouldn’t apply to residents of nations enrolled within the Visa Waiver Program, which allows journey for enterprise or tourism for as much as 90 days. The vast majority of the 42 nations enrolled in this system are in Europe, with others in Asia, the Center East and elsewhere.
Visa bonds have been proposed previously however haven’t been carried out. The State Division has historically discouraged the requirement due to the cumbersome strategy of posting and discharging a bond and due to a attainable misperceptions by the general public.
Nevertheless, the division stated that earlier view “is not supported by any recent examples or evidence, as visa bonds have not generally been required in any recent period.”
