Welcome to the United States. That Will Be $15,000 Please

The Trump administration is moving to charge immigrants an entry fee at the gate.

Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images

Later this month, the State Department will launch a pilot program on legal immigration that would require people seeking a visa to pay the government a $15,000 bond in order to enter the country.

While this isn’t strictly an entry ticket — allegedly, the money will be refunded if the person leaves the country before the expiration of their visa — it’s pretty close. The details of the program are somewhat nuanced, but really not that difficult to understand. Per NBC News:

The program, scheduled to begin Aug. 20 and last until Aug. 5, 2026, will specifically apply to people in certain foreign countries applying for B-1 or B-2 visas for business or tourist travel to the United States. Each of those visas allows for a maximum stay of six months, though extensions are permitted in some cases.

Visa applicants will be required to provide a bond of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 as a condition of it being issued, and the amount will be determined by consular officers based on each person's circumstances. This can include, the administration said, "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."

These requirements will only apply to countries that the State Department identifies as having records of high visa overstay rates, based on data collected by the Department of Homeland Security. The State Department announced Tuesday that the program will first apply to visa applicants from Malawi and Zambia.

This program is racist, exploitative, and cruel, of course. It is also being justified using the same simple but brutal logic the Trump administration has been leaning on throughout the immigration debate: force foreign governments to stop sending the country immigrants it doesn’t like. It’s particularly frustrating to me, personally, because if this law had been applied broadly during the 1980s, I would not exist.