Trump administration weighs imposing $100K bonds on inexperienced card candidates

The State Division is contemplating requiring some inexperienced card candidates handy over hundreds of {dollars} within the Trump administration’s newest bid to make sure new arrivals to the US can help themselves.

Some officers have floated making would-be authorized everlasting residents submit a $100,000 bond if making use of at a US consulate abroad, the Wall Road Journal reported Thursday.

Others stated the deposit quantity may fluctuate relying on particular person instances.

Inexperienced card holders would doubtless be repaid upon turning into US residents, a course of that takes a minimum of 5 years.

“President Trump has made clear that those that want to immigrate to the US have to be financially self-sufficient,” State Division spokesman Tommy Pigott advised the Journal, confirming that the administration was exploring methods beneath current regulation to require the bond, which may be posted by a inexperienced card applicant’s relations.

The proposed bond requirement would broaden on a pilot program for vacationer visas that has been in impact since August 2025. Initially, candidates from the African nations of Malawi and Zambia have been required to publish a refundable bond of as much as $15,000, forfeited in the event that they overstayed the visa or utilized for an additional immigration standing, akin to asylum, after arriving.

The program has since expanded to 50 countries, greater than half of that are in Africa.

Immigration advocates, like Sharvari Dalal-Dheini of the American Immigration Legal professionals Affiliation, accused the Trump administration of instituting a “pay-for-play” system.

“The purpose of bonds is, it appears, to maintain out a sure sort of immigrant,” Dalal-Dheini advised the Journal. “Solely the rich can come go to, or reunite with household, or search a greater life for themselves.”

The WSJ report emerged hours after the Trump administration revived the so-called “public cost” rule, which may deny inexperienced playing cards to immigrants who use public advantages akin to meals stamps, Medicaid, and housing vouchers.

Beneath the rule, inexperienced card candidates should present they received’t be taxpayer burdens, or “public costs.”

“We’re reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, defending public sources, and ending insurance policies that inspired dependency on hard-working American taxpayers,” the Division of Homeland Safety said in an X post Thursday morning.

The general public cost rule was first carried out in February 2020, throughout Trump’s first time period, however was scrapped by former President Joe Biden.