The State Department proposes requiring business and tourist visa applicants to pay a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a measure that could make the process inaccessible to many.
In a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the department said it would launch a 12-month pilot program in which people from countries considered to have high overstay rates and deficient internal document security controls may be required to pay bonds of $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000 when applying for a visa.
The proposal comes as the Trump administration is tightening visa requirements for applicants. Last week, the State Department announced that many visa renewal applicants would have to undergo an additional in-person interview, something that was not required in the past. In addition, the department proposes that Diversity Visa Lottery applicants have valid passports from their countries of citizenship.
A preview of the bond notice, published on the Federal Register website on Monday, stated that the pilot program would take effect 15 days after its formal publication and is necessary to ensure that the U.S. government is not financially liable if a visitor fails to comply with the terms of their visa.
“Foreign nationals applying for visas as temporary visitors for business or pleasure who are citizens of countries identified by the department as having high overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is considered deficient, or that offer citizenship by investment, if the foreign national obtained citizenship without a residency requirement, may be subject to the pilot program,” the notice states.
The affected countries will be listed once the program takes effect, according to the statement. The bond may be waived depending on the individual applicant’s circumstances.
The bond would not apply to citizens of countries enrolled in the Visa Waiver Program, which allows business or tourist travel for up to 90 days. Most of the 42 countries enrolled in the program are in Europe, with others in Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere.
Visa bonds have been proposed in the past but not implemented. The State Department has traditionally discouraged the requirement due to the laborious process of issuing and clearing a bond and due to possible public misperceptions.
However, the department stated that the previous view “is not corroborated by any recent example or evidence, as visa bonds have generally not been required in any recent period”.