US to require up to $15,000 bond for some tourists
The Department of State notice released on Monday said the effort aims to deter those who overstay their visas.
The 12-month pilot programme, which will begin on August 20, will target those seeking B-1 or B-2 visas from countries with high rates of overstays although the document does not identify the nations. In June, the US government announced the possibility of full or partial travel bans on visitors from 36 countries with high rates of overstays among other concerns.
The State Department said in its announcement the programme could bring in $20m over the course of a year.
'The Pilot Program is further designed to serve as a diplomatic tool to encourage foreign governments to take all appropriate actions to ensure robust screening and vetting for all citizens in matters of identity verification and public safety,' the release said.
The release notes that historically the State Department has discouraged requiring travellers to the US to post a bond, saying processing the bonds would be 'cumbersome'.
In 2020 at the end of President Donald Trump's first administration, the White House rolled out a similar six-month programme that targeted two dozen countries, most of which were in Africa. It was not fully implemented due to the drop in global travel associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the notice said
The Trump administration said the new programme would be a diplomatic deterrent for bad actors trying to enter the US. According to the report, there were 500,000 suspected overstays in the fiscal year 2023.
Trump has made cracking down on immigration a central focus of his presidency, surging resources to secure the border and arresting tens of thousands of undocumented migrants, including many who are seeking legal status.
The administration has justified its arrests and deportations on repeated claims that those who are 'unlawfully present in the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety' although overwhelming evidence has shown that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than naturally born Americans.
A report presented to the US House of Representatives in 2024 looking at Texas arrest records determined that both documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than US citizens with undocumented migrants arrested less than half as often as native-born citizens. A 2021 study by Oxford Economics similarly found that undocumented immigrants are 33 percent less likely to be incarcerated than US citizens.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Trump says he will ‘substantially' raise tariffs on India over Russian oil
Washington, DC – United States President Donald Trump says he will 'substantially' raise tariffs on India, intensifying the row between the two countries after years of rapprochement. Trump accused India in a social media post on Monday of buying and reselling 'massive amounts' of Russian oil 'for big profits'. 'They don't care how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine,' the US president wrote. 'Because of this, I will be substantially raising the Tariff paid by India to the USA. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!' He did not specify the rate of the tariffs or when they would take effect. The US imported $87.4bn in Indian goods in 2024, according to US government data. Last week, Trump announced 25 percent tariffs on Indian goods, citing New Delhi's levies on US products and purchases of Russian oil and military equipment. According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), India has been buying Russian oil at a discount since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022, which unleashed heavy Western sanctions on Russia, including its energy sector. India increased its purchases of Russian oil more than sixfold after the conflict broke out, an EIA report said. On Saturday, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal suggested that his country would maintain its relations with Russia despite Trump's criticisms. 'Our bilateral relationships with various countries stand on their own merit and should not be seen from the prism of a third country,' Jaiswal told reporters. 'India and Russia have a steady and time-tested partnership.' While campaigning last year, Trump promised to bring a swift end to the war in Ukraine, but the conflict continues to rage on more than six months into his presidency. Trump initially took a neutral approach to try to mediate an end to the war, but in recent weeks, he has been increasingly critical of Russia and has threatened further sanctions against Moscow. On Sunday, White House envoy Steve Witkoff confirmed that he will visit Russia in the coming days for talks to end the war. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, but its initial assault to capture the capital, Kyiv, was fended off. Since then, the fighting has turned into a protracted conflict for control of the eastern part of the country. On Sunday, top White House aide Stephen Miller accused India of 'financing' Russia's war in Ukraine. 'People will be shocked to learn that India is basically tied with China in purchasing Russian oil. That's an astonishing fact,' Miller told Fox News.
Al Jazeera
3 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
US to require up to $15,000 bond for some tourists
The United States could require up to $15,000 bonds for some tourist and business visas under a pilot programme launching in two weeks. The Department of State notice released on Monday said the effort aims to deter those who overstay their visas. The 12-month pilot programme, which will begin on August 20, will target those seeking B-1 or B-2 visas from countries with high rates of overstays although the document does not identify the nations. In June, the US government announced the possibility of full or partial travel bans on visitors from 36 countries with high rates of overstays among other concerns. The State Department said in its announcement the programme could bring in $20m over the course of a year. 'The Pilot Program is further designed to serve as a diplomatic tool to encourage foreign governments to take all appropriate actions to ensure robust screening and vetting for all citizens in matters of identity verification and public safety,' the release said. The release notes that historically the State Department has discouraged requiring travellers to the US to post a bond, saying processing the bonds would be 'cumbersome'. In 2020 at the end of President Donald Trump's first administration, the White House rolled out a similar six-month programme that targeted two dozen countries, most of which were in Africa. It was not fully implemented due to the drop in global travel associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the notice said The Trump administration said the new programme would be a diplomatic deterrent for bad actors trying to enter the US. According to the report, there were 500,000 suspected overstays in the fiscal year 2023. Trump has made cracking down on immigration a central focus of his presidency, surging resources to secure the border and arresting tens of thousands of undocumented migrants, including many who are seeking legal status. The administration has justified its arrests and deportations on repeated claims that those who are 'unlawfully present in the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety' although overwhelming evidence has shown that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than naturally born Americans. A report presented to the US House of Representatives in 2024 looking at Texas arrest records determined that both documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a lower rate than US citizens with undocumented migrants arrested less than half as often as native-born citizens. A 2021 study by Oxford Economics similarly found that undocumented immigrants are 33 percent less likely to be incarcerated than US citizens.
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Banana republic? Trump puts credibility of US economic data on the line
The firing of a top United States statistics official by President Donald Trump last week has drawn concerns from economists and policymakers regarding the credibility of data in the world's biggest economy. Trump's dismissal of Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer after the release of disappointing employment figures on Friday has raised fears over the integrity of Washington's economic data, which are relied on by countless businesses and investors in the US and across the world. The National Association for Business Economics warned that McEntarfer's 'baseless' ouster risked doing 'lasting harm to the institutions that support American economic stability'. 'It could open the door to political meddling and certainly will undermine trust in federal statistics that businesses, policymakers and individuals use to make some of their most important decisions,' Erica Groshen, who led the Bureau of Labor Statistics under former President Barack Obama, told Al Jazeera. If Trump's dismissal of McEntarfer and other presidential appointees is allowed to stand, Groshen said, he could make a habit of firing any head of a statistical agency or other body that delivers 'unwelcome news'. 'Then he is likely to replace them with appointees who prioritise serving his goals over serving the mission of their agencies, ethical standards or scientific integrity,' Groshen said. Trump, who justified McEntarfer's removal by claiming without evidence that the latest job figures were 'rigged' to make him look bad, said on Sunday that he would announce a new Bureau of Labor Statistics head in three or four days. 'Global ramifications' A collapse in trust in official economic data about the US would have ramifications worldwide. Despite the growing influence of emerging economies such as China and India, the US remains the world's largest economy by some distance. The US gross domestic product (GDP) at about $30.3 trillion accounts for more than one-quarter of the global economy. China's estimated GDP is about two-thirds that amount. US government data on trade, employment, consumer spending and GDP are considered important signals for the direction of the global economy and are closely followed by businesses and investors from London to Dubai and Tokyo. Many countries, including democratic states, have faced accusations of fiddling with economic statistics for political reasons, often with serious reputational consequences. In 2010, the European Commission published a withering report accusing Greece of deliberately falsifying data to conceal the poor state of its public finances. In 2013, the International Monetary Fund officially censured Argentina for providing what it said was inaccurate data on inflation and economic growth. 'Economic data manipulation' Some research suggests that countries run by strong-arm leaders are especially prone to misrepresenting the state of their economies. A 2024 study published in the European Journal of Political Economy found that economic openness and democracy decreased the likelihood of governments manipulating statistics although there were no observable positive effects from media freedom or the independence of the statistical office. In a 2022 paper that used satellite imagery of nighttime light as a proxy for economic development, Luis Martinez, a professor at the University of Chicago, estimated that autocratic countries artificially inflated their annual GDP growth by about 35 percent. 'Economic data manipulation is pervasive in history, especially in autocracies and dictatorships to create narratives for the people – typically to embellish standards of living,' Tomasz Michalski, an associate professor of economics at the HEC Paris business school, told Al Jazeera. 'What is rarer, though, is to find such deliberate behaviour in countries that strive to be democracies or are more developed.' After Trump's firing of McEntarfer, a career economist who was appointed in 2024 with overwhelming bipartisan support, critics were quick to note parallels to tactics attributed to strongman leaders seeking to bolster public approval for their policies. 'It's one more step on our rapid descent into banana republic status,' Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said on Substack, a subscription-based newsletter platform. Lawrence Summers, who served as US Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, described the firing as the 'stuff of democracies giving way to authoritarianism'. Scott Sumner, a professor of economics at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts, said Trump's move made the US 'look more like a banana republic' although it remained to be seen whether he would seek to directly manipulate the government's economic figures. 'It's actually hard to fool the public, and almost no one was fooled by the Argentina manipulation,' Sumner told Al Jazeera. 'It's too soon to say whether Trump will try to do the same. Any attempt to do so would likely fail.' 'The quality of US economic statistics' The quality of US economic data has been a growing concern for some time due in part to the Trump administration's freeze on hiring federal employees and staff cuts at numerous agencies. In March, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick dissolved two expert committees that advised the government on its economic statistics, prompting concern among some economists. In June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that it had stopped collecting price-related data in three US cities – Buffalo, New York; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Provo, Utah – due to limitations in 'current resources'. But even before Trump's return to the White House in January, declining response rates to surveys among the public in recent years had made the collection of data increasingly difficult, raising concerns about accuracy. In a poll published by the Reuters news agency last month, 89 of 100 policy experts surveyed said they had at least some concerns about the quality of US economic statistics. 'Some data is just unreliable because people stopped responding to surveys or the responses became so biased given the nonhomogeneous response rates,' said Michalski, the HEC Paris associate professor. 'There are no easy remedies often for improving data collection given that many people are not using landlines, are unreachable or provide careless answers to investigators,' he said. Even with sound methodology, data are always at risk of manipulation once politicians get involved, Michalski added. 'Even with correct numbers, it is possible to spin a story about inflation or GDP growth by changing the base years or selecting some specific periods to weave narratives,' he said. 'The incentives to manipulate and falsify are clearly there. There is little or no punishment.' Groshen said that while she does not expect US economic data to stop being reliable in the immediate future, 'we seem headed in that direction.' 'For now, the BLS will continue to operate as it has before,' she said. 'We will need to start worrying if and when the president's people are embedded there.'
