There’s a new development in the Trump administration’s full-court press to bar foreigners from coming to the United States: Why not charge foreign tourists an exorbitant amount of money to visit here? The State Department announced this grand plan on Tuesday, calling it a “pilot” program that will be in effect for one year.
Ostensibly, this is targeted at countries with high visa overstay rates. The notion is that visitors will pay a bond of no less than $5,000 and as high as $15,000. Consular officers get to set the bond based on “any information provided by the visa applicant on the visa application or in the visa interview regarding the alien’s purpose of travel, current employment, income, skills, and education.”
This new extortion racket isn’t grounded in any law. The official publication of the rule in the Federal Register justifies this only by referencing President Donald Trump’s numerous executive orders as if they were law. So, when Trump popped off with his racist “Protecting the American People Against Invasion” executive order on Day 1 of his second term, the whole of the federal government tilted toward restricting immigration. Now, apparently, those efforts have turned to restricting visitors.
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The first two countries that the administration has arbitrarily decided will be included in the pilot program are Malawi and Zambia. According to the administration, this is based on their overstay rate from DHS’s 2023 report. Except, as NBC pointed out, those two countries are not the top overstayers noted in that report—that would be Laos. Haiti, and Chad. However, people from those countries are already barred from coming here thanks to Trump’s travel ban 2.0, so apparently Secretary of State Marco Rubio had to go down the list to find other countries to target.
Of course, like all things immigration-related in the Trump administration, the countries that will be included in this pay-for-play arrangement can change at any time. Another fun fact: If someone here on a tourist visa decides to apply for asylum or any other nonimmigrant status, that’s a breach of the bond conditions and the government gets to keep the bond money.
All of this fits with Trump’s other isolationist, nativist actions. He’s tried to bar Harvard from enrolling international students. The courts have blocked those efforts, but never fear: the administration’s “settlement” with Columbia University requires the school to decrease international student enrollment.
This push to drive out international students is catastrophically bad for higher education and the economy. Over 1.1 million international students contributed $44 billion to the economy during the 2023-2024 school year. That’s on top of the hit the economy is taking from Trump’s haphazard and capricious trade war and tariffpalooza. There’s already a significant decline in international tourism, and we’re on track to lose $29 billion from that.
Rubio continues to be one of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers, helping him isolate the United States and withdraw us from the global community. The secretary of state stepped up to keep America safe by refusing to issue visas to a Venezuelan Little League team and the Cuban national women’s volleyball team. But at least we’re letting in white South Africans, the only “refugees” Trump acknowledges.
As for the administration’s latest xenophobic ploy, which countries are subject to the bond requirement can change at any time—and everyone knows full well that countries will be added to and removed from this list based on how much they do or do not suck up to Trump. Meanwhile, foreign visitors of all stripes are going to keep passing us by, because who wants to deal with any of this?