State Department Weighs $100,000 Bond for Some Green Card Applicants Abroad

A Bond, Not a Fee

The State Department is considering a rule that would require some immigrant visa applicants overseas to post a bond of up to $100,000 before they're allowed to move to the United States, according to The Wall Street Journal. The proposal is still being discussed internally and has not been finalized.

This isn't a tax or a fee. It's collateral. Officials familiar with the discussions told the WSJ that applicants would get the money back only after becoming US citizens, a process that typically takes at least five years, as reported by Hindustan Times and NDTV Profit.

State Department spokesperson Tommy Pigott confirmed the department is exploring existing authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act to require certain applicants to post a bond "as a way to demonstrate they have access to the funds needed to support themselves," according to NDTV Profit. Pigott added: "President Trump has made clear that those who wish to immigrate to the United States must be financially self-sufficient."

Who It Would Hit

The proposal targets people applying for immigrant visas at US consulates abroad, visas that grant lawful permanent resident status the moment the holder enters the country. That mostly means family-sponsored immigrants: spouses, parents, siblings of US citizens, according to Hindustan Times.

It would NOT primarily hit the H-1B-to-green-card pipeline that many Indian tech workers use. Most employment-based applicants already live in the US on temporary visas before applying for permanent residency domestically. NDTV Profit noted this distinction clearly; it's the one detail that separates panic headlines from the actual mechanics of the rule.

Still, family-sponsored immigrant visas are frequently processed overseas, and Indians represent one of the largest backlogs in the US immigration system, according to The Times of India. If the policy expands beyond a pilot, it could raise the upfront cost of legal immigration substantially for Indian families using the family-based track, even if the money eventually comes back.

Still Just a Pilot Idea

No country has been named. The State Department is reportedly considering testing the bond requirement in a small number of countries before deciding whether to roll it out nationwide, according to both the WSJ reporting relayed by NDTV Profit and Hindustan Times. It remains unclear whether India would be included.

The amount isn't locked in either. Officials have floated $100,000 as a reference point, but people familiar with the discussions say the actual bond could be higher or lower depending on the applicant's individual circumstances.

The Precedent Already Exists

This isn't coming out of nowhere. The administration already runs a smaller bond pilot for certain tourist visa applicants from selected countries, capped at $15,000, according to NDTV Profit. The State Department says roughly 97% of applicants who posted those bonds complied with visa terms, meaning they didn't overstay or violate the conditions of entry.

That compliance number matters. If accurate, it suggests the tourist bond pilot worked as designed, an incentive structure that got the vast majority of people to follow the rules without keeping their money. Whether a $100,000 immigrant bond produces similar compliance, or just prices out working- and middle-class families, is an open question nobody has data on yet because the program doesn't exist.

The Fair Case Against It

Immigration lawyers quoted by the WSJ argue the bond requirement could make legal immigration substantially more expensive and discourage applicants from lower- and middle-income households, a concern NDTV Profit highlighted directly. A $100,000 hold, even if refundable in five years, is real money most families don't have sitting around, and tying up that capital for half a decade has an opportunity cost even if it's eventually returned.

Family-sponsored immigration exists specifically for people without deep-pocketed employer sponsors. A bond requirement calibrated to weed out fraud or public-benefit dependency could, in practice, function as a wealth test on a category of immigration that was never designed to be one.

On the other side: taxpayers footing the bill for immigrants who can't support themselves isn't a hypothetical. It's a documented cost driver in social-service budgets, and Pigott's stated rationale, self-sufficiency, is the same standard already applied to many public-charge immigration determinations.

What Happens Next

The rule isn't final. No pilot countries have been announced, no effective date has been set, and the bond figure itself is still being negotiated internally, per WSJ reporting cited across all three outlets. The real test comes when the State Department names the first pilot countries and the actual bond schedule. Until then, this is a proposal under discussion, not policy.