If you want to visit the US, you might soon need to pack more than a suitcase – try a $15,000 (£11,286) security deposit.
That’s the logic behind a revived Trump-era scheme quietly being piloted by the US State Department.
Citizens from Malawi and Zambia will be forced to fork out the hefty deposit for a tourist or business visa, aiming to curb visa overstayers or ‘where screening and vetting information is considered deficient’, according to a US government notice.
To further complicate things, they must arrive and depart via only three airports, or risk being denied entry. Sure, they get the deposit back if they comply with all the terms, but it sets a dangerous precedent.
In practice, it’s little more than legalised discrimination – a blunt, bureaucratic penalty for the crime of coming from a ‘poor’ country.
The US calls it a ‘bond’, but a ‘bank border’ might be a more accurate description.
For a country that sells itself as the land of the free, America has become increasingly obsessed with fees. Visa applicants already pay hundreds in processing costs, wait up to 35 months for processing, and have to declare every detail of their lives – including handing over the keys to all their social media accounts.
Now, even that’s not enough. They’ll need to offer thousands of dollars just to prove they’ll go home again.
And that’s not all. When they get to the border? They’re still not guaranteed entry.
This isn’t policy – it’s paranoia, priced up. As far as I can see, there’s no evidence that schemes like this reduce overstays.
The bond pilot is limited in scope and designed to be temporary – which is the diplomatic equivalent of a shrug.
The kicker? The Trump Administration has been using ‘a flawed Department of Homeland Security overstay report to bar people from immigrating or gaining temporary visas’, according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.
So, what’s the real reason for the targeted list? It’s not hard to guess. It’s a tale as old as time for Trump.
The countries affected form a carefully curated list that are economically disadvantaged, majority non-white, or politically expendable. The racial and class dynamics here aren’t a side effect – they’re the whole point.
Even setting that aside, it’s so staggeringly short-sighted it makes literally no sense.
As the United Kingdom knows more than most, soft power matters on the world stage. And as places like London and New York also know, tourism and cultural exchange really matter.
When you tell the world – as this policy does – that only wealthy people with certain-coloured passports are welcome, you don’t just block families and friends. You block futures – your own, that is.
The American Dream was always overstated, but this turns it into a work of pure Hollywood fiction.
And for what, exactly? So Trump can show he’s tough on immigration? To impress a Fox News audience already convinced that anyone with a foreign name is secretly planning to stay forever?
But what is the point, really? The vast majority of people do go home. In fact, less than 2% of visitors overstay their visa. That’s according to the US government’s own figures.
And of that tiny percentage, many are unintentional – a missed deadline, a cancelled flight, or bureaucratic confusion.
Or, like Thomas – a 35-year-old tech worker from Ireland, who was visiting his girlfriend in the US when he said he suffered a sudden health issue that prevented him from flying. His overstay of just three days landed him in ICE custody, where he spent 100 days in detention and federal facilities, claiming he endured overcrowded conditions and limited medical care.
He was deported and slapped with a 10-year re-entry ban.
If the concern is genuinely about overstayers, why not invest in streamlining the existing system – rather than sticking a price tag on it?
This isn’t just stupid, pointless, and unfair. It’s costly.
The US economy relies heavily on tourism from the very countries it’s now alienating. In 2024, travellers to the US directly contributed $1.3 trillion (£977 billion) and generated an economic output of $2.9 trillion (£2.1 trillion), supporting over 15 million jobs.
America’s global reputation – now truly reeling from Trump 2.0 chaos – has already caused a tourism black hole. By March 2025, just weeks after Trump moved back into the White House, visits from the UK to the US collapsed by over 14%.
On the continent, the figures were even worse. Nearly 30% fewer Germans visited the US, while that figure was 25% in Spain – for western Europeans, there were 17% fewer visits.
Industry insiders and analysts blamed political backlash for the sharp decline in visits from countries where Trump’s personal popularity is through the floor.
The irony? Trump is desperate to win hearts and minds globally. To present himself as the world’s greatest leader – strong, popular, attractive.
He wants to compete with China’s infrastructure, Russia’s disinformation machine, and Europe’s unity.
And yet, in the same breath, he treats visitors with increasing contempt. For ordinary people – students, partners, tourists, family members – who now face an even steeper climb to get a foot in the door, it might simply not be worth it anymore.
The land of the free? Maybe once. Right now, it’s just the land of the fee.
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