A deposit of up to $15,000 may be required to apply for entry into the United States, and the required visa document is not guaranteed.
EFE (via 14ymedio), 7 January 2025 — The U.S. government has added Venezuela and Cuba to a list of 25 new countries whose citizens must post bonds of up to $15,000 to apply for entry into the United States, the State Department said this week.
The change will take place from January 21st and the expanded list includes nations such as Algeria, Angola, Gabon, Nepal, Senegal, Zimbabwe and Uganda.
Any citizen or person traveling with a passport issued by one of those countries and who is eligible for a B1 or B2 visa will be required to deposit a bond of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000, an amount that will be determined at the time of the applicant’s interview.
The B1 visa allows travel for business purposes, and the B2 visa authorizes entry for tourism, personal, or medical reasons. In total, the list now includes 38 countries, most of them in Africa.
If someone pays the fee without the guidance of a consular worker, that money will not be refunded.
The State Department specified on Tuesday that the bond does not guarantee the issuance of the visa and noted that if someone pays the fee without the guidance of a consular worker, that money will not be refunded.
As a condition of the bond, those who have deposited it must enter and leave the country through Washington Dulles International Airport, New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, or Boston’s Logan Airport.
Failure to comply with this requirement, it is noted, could result in the denial of entry or cause the departure to not be properly recorded.
The digital site Axios notes that the State Department has not specified whether the inclusion of Venezuela is related to the military operation that resulted in the capture of Nicolás Maduro.
The arrest of the deposed Venezuelan leader, who is now in a New York prison, took place on January 3 in Caracas along with his wife, Cilia Flores.
The formal indictment accuses Maduro, among other charges, of conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism.
The formal indictment accuses Maduro, among other charges, of conspiracy to commit narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Following the operation that led to his capture, US President Donald Trump stated that Cuba “has always survived thanks to Venezuela” and emphasized that now the island “is about to fall.”
The Executive has not justified the inclusion of any of the added countries.
Last week Washington had added seven to the list of nations whose passport holders must post bail – Bhutan, Botswana, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Namibia and Turkmenistan – thus until this latest communication there were only 13 nations affected.
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