Addressing what it calls “a clear national security threat,” the Trump administration will require that some foreign visitors pay bonds of up to $15,000 to help ensure they do not overstay their visas, under a State Department trial program announced on Monday.
Foreigners seeking to enter the United States on tourist or business visas from countries with high visa overstay rates will be expected to put down no less than $5,000, the department said in a public notice. Visitors who fail to leave the United States before their visa expires will forfeit their bond; those who comply with their visa requirements will get their money back.
The notice did not specify which countries would be subject to the program, saying only that they would be determined based on visa overstay data collected and published by the Department of Homeland Security.
The move is the Trump administration’s latest in a multifront effort to crack down on illegal immigration after President Trump made the issue the centerpiece of his 2024 campaign.
A notice in the Federal Register announcing the new rule called it “a key pillar of the Trump administration’s foreign policy to protect the United States from the clear national security threat posed by visa overstays and deficient screening and vetting.”
Citing Department of Homeland Security data from 2023, the notice said that more than 500,000 people admitted to the United States through air or sea ports of entry most likely remained in the country past the end of their authorized stay.
Visitors who are made to deposit bonds will be required to arrive and depart the United States from airports chosen to participate in the program, which the State Department said it would announce 15 days before the bonds were put in place.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The 12-month pilot program will also apply to foreign nationals from countries where “screening and vetting information is deemed deficient,” according to the notice, as well as people granted citizenship on the basis of promised investments or without a residency requirement.
Consular officers granting visas will determine the amount of the bond, according to the notice.
The program is meant to test the department’s past assumption that bond payments are “too cumbersome to be practical,” as the notice put it.
Consular officers already have the authority to impose bonds on visa applicants, the notice said, but noted that the State Department’s official Foreign Affairs Manual declared that “such bonds will rarely, if ever, be used.” It called practical considerations “untested.”
The State Department planned to test a similar program late in the first Trump administration but did not carry it out after foreign travel ground to a virtual halt because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The online notice is scheduled to be published in the print edition of the Federal Register on Tuesday, and will go into effect 15 days later, on Aug. 20.
Michael Crowley covers the State Department and U.S. foreign policy for The Times. He has reported from nearly three dozen countries and often travels with the secretary of state.
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