Trump Administration’s Visa Bond Proposal

The State Department, under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is working on a plan to tighten regulations for the many foreigners living in the U.S. on visas each year.

A proposed set of federal regulations would require certain tourists and business visa holders from selected countries—those with high rates of visa overstays—to post bonds as high as $15,000.

Visa holders would only receive their bonds back once they departed the United States.

This pilot program is set to last for 12 months, after which the Trump administration will evaluate its effectiveness in reducing the number of overstays from the targeted countries.

The proposed rules indicate:

Specific applicants for a B-1/B-2 visa may be required to secure visa bonds, particularly if they hail from countries identified by the State Department as having significant visa overstay issues. The State Department will publish the list of eligible countries on travel.state.gov at least 15 days prior to the pilot program’s initiation, and the list may change within 15 days of its release. When the target countries are announced, the department will also provide context for the bond requirements according to this regulation.

Recent data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reveals that around 400,000 foreigners overstayed their visas in 2023, failing to exit the U.S. as scheduled.

Some nations have staggering overstay rates—higher than 20%—for both business and tourist visas. Countries like Burma, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, and Haiti are on this list.

DHS has long estimated that nearly half of the 11 to 22 million undocumented immigrants in the United States initially entered on visas but overstayed them.