The United States government will launch, on August 20, a pilot program that could oblige tourist and business visa applicants to pay for the cautions of up to $ 15,000 (R $ 82,000), a notice published on Monday (4) in the US Official Gazette. The measure aims to contain the number of visitors who remain in the country after the visa expires.
According to the document, consular officers will have discretion to apply the requirement to citizens of countries with high irregular permanence rates or where the process of screening and verifying information is considered insufficient. The possible amounts will be $ 5,000, $ 10,000 or $ 15,000, with the expectation that the minimum level adopted is $ 10,000.
The initiative is part of the immigration policies hardened by President Donald Trump, who had already imposed on June a total or partial veto of entry to citizens of 19 countries for national security reasons. Countries with the highest irregular permanence rates are Chad, Eritreia, Haiti, Myanmar and Yemen, as well as African nations such as Burundi, Djibouti and Togo, according to data from the Customs Agency and Border Protection (CBP) for the 2023 fiscal year.
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A similar program was announced in November 2020 at the end of Trump’s first term, but was not fully implemented due to the drop in global tourism caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The State Department has not reported the estimated amount of applicants that may be affected. Since the adoption of more restrictive measures, such as travel veto, there was a retreat in searching for the US destination: transatlantic air tariffs returned to pre-pound levels and the flow of visitors from Canada and Mexico fell 20% over the previous year.
(com Reuters)
