By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Donald Trump has fanned out new visa curbs on 24 countries, 15 of them in Africa, whose nationals may pay up to $15,000 bond for travel to United States in the next six months, effective from December 24.
It is part of his parting shots as – though he kicks and screams against it – he counts down his final days in the White House where he has pursued isolationist policies in a country of immigrants which had welcomed his own grandparents and mother.
The temporary restrictions, which run through June 24, 2021, affect tourist and business visas and apply to nationals of Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Mauritania, Eritrea, and Sudan.
Other countries are Angola, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cabo Verde, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Liberia, Myanmar (Burma), Papua New Guinea, and Sao Tome and Principe.
The US State Department said the new rule targets countries whose nationals have higher rates of overstaying B-2 visas for tourists and B-1 visas for business travellers.
The Trump administration said the six-month pilot programme aims to test the feasibility of collecting such bonds and will serve as a diplomatic deterrence to overstaying the visas.
“The Pilot Program is designed to apply to nationals of specified countries with high overstay rates to serve as a diplomatic tool to encourage foreign governments to take all appropriate actions to ensure their nationals timely depart the United States after making temporary visits,” the State Department explained in the document.
ALJAZEERA reports that Trump, who lost a re-election bid on November 3, made restricting immigration a focus of his four-year term in office.
President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, has pledged to reverse many of the Republican president’s immigration policies, but untangling hundreds of changes could take months or years.
Biden has said that “on day one” he would revoke Trump’s travel restrictions – often known as the “Muslim Ban” – which affects nationals from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, North Korea, Nigeria, Sudan, and Myanmar.
Trump signed the travel ban by way of executive order in 2017, a move that drew widespread outrage from activists and rights groups who accused him of discrimination and racism, Reuters recalls.
Current mandatory visa fees range from $160 to $300.
And this latest visa bond rule allows U.S. consular officers to require tourist and business travellers from countries whose nationals had an “overstay rate” of 10 per cent or higher in 2019 to pay a refundable bond of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000.
Twenty-four countries meet that criterion, including 15 African countries. While those nations had higher rates of overstays, they sent relatively few travellers to the US.
Historically, US consular officers have been discouraged from requiring travellers to the US to post a bond, with State Department guidance saying processing of the bonds would be “cumbersome”, the temporary rule explained.
Trump’s anti-immigration policies
The US is also wielding the new policy to force other governments to become more proactive with driving down overstay rates of their nationals.
“The US Government sends a message to all countries that high overstay rates may result in measures that negatively affect broad categories of their nationals, thereby encouraging countries to take action to encourage their nationals to comply with US immigration law,” the State Department adds.
But, as QUARTZ AFRICA explains, the move is seen as yet another anti-immigration policy by the Trump administration which affects African countries more than others.
In September, the US Department of Homeland Security proposed a change to limit visa terms to two years for some international students with Africa accounting for 36 of the 59 countries affected.
The continent has also borne the brunt of several of Trump’s anti-immigration policies.
Trump’s high-profile and controversial “Muslim ban” in the early days of his administration affected Sudan, Libya, and Somalia. In January, a watered-down version of the ban was expanded to included Nigeria, Eritrea, and Tanzania.
While Nigeria has typically seemed a prime subject of Trump’s recent anti-African immigration policies, Africa’s most populous country is not affected by the latest visa bond policy.
Nigeria ranked high among countries with visa overstays in the US in 2018, but the new policy requirement will be placed on countries with over 10 per cent of nationals overstaying their visas as of 2019.
Nigeria had the largest global drop-off in visitors to the US last year.