The US has commenced the trial of a 1-year pilot program in which visitors to the United States on tourist and business visas are required to “post a bond” worth as high as $15,000 to discourage visa overstay.
This means that applicants, upon submitting a visa application, are sent a payment link to complete Form I-352 and deposit $5000, $10,000 or $15,000, depending on what the visa officer decides at the interview and their perceived risk of overstay.
Enforcement
According to Bright Simons, the US government also insists that under the existing law (22 CFR 41.11(b)(2)), visa officers have always had the power to demand a bond. And, thus, this is not an invention of the new administration. The State Department had earlier determined that the process of paying such bonds is too cumbersome; hence, visa officers were advised not to demand the bonds.
The Trump administration says this decision is to address visa overstaying which is a major problem for the US as it costs $17,241 to remove an “illegal” migrant from the US. The payment of the bond must be done online on the US government’s fintech portal, Pay.Gov.
Challenge For African Countries
The major challenge for Nigerians and African countries that will be selected for the post-pilot implementation from August 2026 is that most of their citizens do not have credit or debit cards that can be used to make $10,000 payments.
Local US cards on the other hand are typically constrained because of FX limits and anti-fraud checks when it comes to transactions originating from Africa. This could open the doors to agents especially US residents to make money off this scheme and at the worst discourage citizens of target countries from applying for US visas.