The U.S. might require bonds of as much as $15,000 for some vacationer and enterprise visas beneath a pilot program launching in two weeks, a authorities discover mentioned on Monday, an effort that goals to crack down on guests who overstay their visas.
This system provides U.S. consular officers the discretion to impose bonds on guests from nations with excessive charges of visa overstays, in line with a Federal Register discover. Bonds is also utilized to individuals coming from nations the place screening and vetting data is deemed inadequate, the discover mentioned.
President Donald Trump has made cracking down on unlawful immigration a spotlight of his presidency, boosting sources to safe the border and arresting individuals within the U.S. illegally.
He issued a journey ban in June that absolutely or partially blocks residents of 19 nations from coming into the U.S. on nationwide safety grounds.
Trump’s immigration insurance policies have led some guests to skip journey to the US. Transatlantic airfares dropped to charges final seen earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic in Could and journey from Canada and Mexico to the U.S. fell by 20% year-over-year.
Efficient August 20, the brand new visa program will final for roughly a yr, the federal government discover mentioned. Consular officers can have three choices for visa candidates subjected to the bonds: $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000, however will usually be anticipated to require no less than $10,000, it mentioned.
An identical pilot program was launched in November 2020 over the past months of Trump’s first time period in workplace, nevertheless it was not absolutely applied because of the drop in international journey related to the pandemic, the discover mentioned.
The State Division was unable to estimate the variety of visa candidates who could possibly be affected by the change. Most of the nations focused by Trump’s journey ban even have excessive charges of visa overstays, together with Chad, Eritrea, Haiti, Myanmar and Yemen.
Quite a few nations in Africa, together with Burundi, Djibouti and Togo additionally had excessive overstay charges, in line with U.S. Customs and Border Safety knowledge from fiscal yr 2023.
—Ted Hesson, Reuters
