The pilot will require visitors from Malawi and Zambia on B-1 and B-2 visas to pay a bond of US$5,000, US$10,000 or US$15,000 (AU$23,000) to the US Government in order to have their visas approved.
International visitors travelling on passports from non-visa-waiver-countries require a B-1 visa to attend conferences being held in the USA.
The default amount for the bond will be set at US$10,000, with consular officials able to vary the amount up or down based on individual applicants.
While the two African nations are the only countries to be named for the pilot so far, countries could be added or removed during the pilot.
The program is intended for countries whose citizens have high overstay rates when in the US, or that have vetting processes “deemed deficient” or that offer citizenship by investment schemes that don’t require residency in the country to obtain citizenship.
Consular officials dealing with travel visas into the US have previously had the ability to make a bond a visa condition, but have been discouraged from doing so, on account of the process being thought to be too “cumbersome”.
According to documents introducing the pilot initiative: “The Pilot Program will help the Department [of State] assess the continued reliance upon the untested historical assessment that imposing visa bonds to achieve the foreign policy and national security goals of the United States remains too cumbersome to be practical.”
Information collected during the program will also be used to understand whether visa bonds deter “legitimate” visa holders from travelling to the US.
The bonds will be repaid to visitors should they leave the US in accordance with their visas.
Travellers from countries in the pilot program will also be required to enter the US from one of three airports on the country’s east coast – Boston Logan International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York or Washington Dulles International Airport serving the capital.
The latest overstay report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection covers the US financial year from October 1, 2022 to September 30, 2023 and determined there were more than half a million people who overstayed their visas.
The report found that the overstay rate of travellers from non-visa-waiver countries was more than five times higher than those coming from visa waiver countries, which include Australia.
While neither Malawi nor Zambia had the highest overstay rates in this report, citizens from many of the countries with higher overstay rates have already been largely prohibited from entering the USA via an executive order from US President Trump in June.
The pilot program will come into effect on August 20.
