Day: August 5, 2025

Travelling to the U.S. is becoming not only more cumbersome, but also more costly, under the second Trump Administration.

On top of a slew of charges it already intends to levy on U.S. visitors, the State Department plans to roll out a year-long visa bond pilot program which will require certain business and tourist visa applicants to post bonds of up to $15,000 as a condition of the visa issuance.

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The visa bond program is a revival of a program from the first Trump Administration, which required nationalities from 23 different countries—most of which are in Africa—to post similar bonds. That program, announced in late 2020, had a six-month timeline but the department did not fully implement it because the COVID-19 pandemic caused an international travel slowdown, according to a government notice on the Federal Register Tuesday.

The second Trump Administration’s visa bond pilot program is set to take effect on Aug. 20. It’s intended “to protect America’s borders and the American people by holding foreign visitors accountable for departing the United States on time,” according to a cable that The Washington Post obtained which bore the signature of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Read More: What to Know About New Social Media Screening Rules for Student Visas

It’s the latest tightening of visa application measures, as part of the Administration’s strict immigration agenda. In late July, the State Department announced that it will require almost all nonimmigrant visa applicants to attend in-person interviews.

Here’s what to know about the visa bond program:

Which travellers have to post visa bonds?

The notice did not specifically mention particular countries. But it said that the department will announce the countries via the website travel.state.gov no less than 15 days before the program takes effect with a “brief explanation of the basis for requiring bonds.” The department also stipulated that the list of countries may be amended throughout the pilot.

The countries “will be identified based on high overstay rates, screening and vetting deficiencies, concerns regarding acquisition of citizenship by investment without a residency requirement, and foreign policy considerations,” a State Department spokesperson is quoted as telling Reuters.

The notice said it will determine the countries with the highest overstay rates based on a 2023 Department of Homeland Security report. Several countries in Africa, as well as Haiti, Laos, Myanmar, and Yemen recorded the highest overstay rates for those visiting for business or tourism, per that report. Many of the countries with those high overstay rates also are part of Trump’s travel ban.

Citizens of the 42 countries and territories enrolled in the Visa Waiver Program would not have to post a bond. The VWP enables travel to the U.S. for business or tourism for up to 90 days without the need for a visa.

The State Department has estimated that the number of visa applicants that fall under the pilot program will hover around 2,000 for the whole 12 months, according to the notice. The department said it “expects the parameters of, and the countries included in, the Pilot Program to be limited due to the number of aliens expected to be found otherwise qualified for visas, and uncertainty as to the number of aliens who will choose to post a visa bond.”

Read More: Why the Trump Administration Is Pausing New Student Visa Interviews at Embassies Across the World

How big is the visa bond?

The size of the bond is up to a consular officer’s discretion, according to the notice, and may vary from case to case.

Covered visa applicants will be required to post a bond of up to $15,000, but the State Department gave consular officers three options for bond amounts: $5,000, $10,000, and $15,000. Consular officers can determine the exact amount of the bond “based upon the applicant’s circumstances.”

The payment amounts have been determined after consultations with the Treasury Department and the Department of Homeland Security.

The bond is payable under the following conditions: the traveler violates the condition of their visa status; the traveler files an “unexcused untimely” application for change of status or extension of their lawful admission or the traveler stays in the U.S. after the period of admission expires. It’s also deemed payable if the traveler timely and properly files an application for change of status or extension of their lawful temporary stay but does not leave the U.S. within 10 days after such request was denied.

Meanwhile, the bond should be canceled when there has been “substantial performance of all conditions imposed by the terms of the bond.”

• The submarine USS Boise has faced maintenance and repair delays since its last patrol ended in early 2015.
• The wait has been caused by — and come to exemplify — the US Navy’s maintenance and repair problems.
• The new chief of naval operations said in his confirmation hearing that the Boise’s time in the yard is “unacceptable.”

Sidelined for over ten years now, the attack submarine USS Boise has become one of the clearest and most damning examples of the US Navy’s maintenance problems.

The Los Angeles-class sub came up during the confirmation hearing of Adm. Daryl Caudle, President Donald Trump’s pick for top admiral. The Senate recently confirmed him as the new chief of naval operations.

Last month, Caudle responded to fresh concerns about the Boise and questions of whether it might be time to scrap the boat. He told the US Senate Armed Services Committee that if he were confirmed, he’d look hard at the Boise’s situation.

“The decision whether or not to actually walk away from Boise is a big one, and I want to make sure I clearly understand the trajectory and trends,” Caudle said, responding to a question from Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican who had asked him if it was time to “just simply pull the plug on that one.”

“I hear you loud and clear, senator, on how unacceptable it is, how long she’s been in the yards,” the admiral said.

He added that the Boise’s delays were “a dagger in my heart as a submarine officer.” Caudle previously served as commander on three nuclear-powered submarines and was the commander of Submarine Forces Atlantic and Submarine Forces, US Pacific Fleet.

The Boise and the larger US Navy shipbuilding and maintenance issues were major topics of conversation in Caudle’s hearing. The Boise was originally launched in 1991 and conducted operations until early 2015, when it wrapped up its last patrol and docked at Naval Station Norfolk for scheduled repairs.

Limited dry dock availability and workforce capacity left the Boise and its crew waiting. In 2016, the vessel lost its ability to perform unrestricted operations, and then it lost its dive certification in the following year. Those developments were then followed by more waiting, leaving the valuable combat asset out of action.

In 2019, then-US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper visited the Boise and praised the crew for maintaining “readiness and lethality” as the vessel was still standing by for repairs. 

In February 2024, the Navy awarded prominent shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) a $1.2 billion contract to begin an engineering overhaul on the Boise. The work is expected to be completed by 2029, meaning the ship will not have set sail on a patrol for roughly 15 years by the time it’s finished. That’s a staggering waste of an expensive, front-line asset. Even when the work is done, the ship will be nearing the end of its service life.

The Boise has thus emerged as an example of overstretched and under-resourced shipyards, insufficient planning, and the challenges of budget instabilities that affect Navy readiness. The sea service did not immediately respond to request for comment from Business Insider.

Work on US nuclear-powered submarines is typically handled by one of the Navy’s four public shipyards, which have seen dramatic demands in recent decades due to a lack of investment in maintenance from the Navy and the increased complexity of the subs and nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, Bryan Clark, a retired Navy submarine officer and defense expert at the Hudson Institute, told Business Insider.

A “combination of factors created a huge backlog at the shipyards,” Clark said.

The long tail of COVID-19 disruptions, particularly for supply chains and labor pools, added strain to Navy shipyards in the early 2020s. In more recent years, experts have pointed to persistent workforce shortages, uneven investment, and inconsistent Navy planning as critical causes of ongoing delays in major shipbuilding programs and maintenance backlogs.

The Navy’s long-standing struggles with routine maintenance stretch back decades, with challenges including persistent shipyard bottlenecks, limited dry dock availability, troubling scheduling missteps, workforce shortages, unreliable or inconsistent maintenance data, and unforeseen issues that tend to emerge during repairs and cause significant delays.

Supply chain problems and shortages of spare parts and critical materials have also added to the strain.

These issues, combined with broader weaknesses in the Navy’s shipbuilding enterprise, have raised concerns within the service and on Capitol Hill about the fleet’s size and overall readiness, particularly as the US emphasizes the need to deter or, if necessary, fight a potential conflict with a major power like China, which has far greater shipbuilding and repair capacity.