Brent Pin­heiro

brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

If you’re one of the thou­sands ap­ply­ing for a US non­im­mi­grant visa, pre­pare to pay an ad­di­tion­al $US250 fee once the visa is grant­ed. The new ‘visa in­tegri­ty fee’ is part of US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ‘One Big Beau­ti­ful Bill’, which was signed in­to law on Ju­ly 4th. The near­ly 900-page long bill aims to, among oth­er things, re­duce tax­es and oth­er­wise ad­dress agen­cies and pro­grams through­out the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. Here’s what we know so far:

What is the Visa In­tegri­ty Fee?

The new US$250 “Visa In­tegri­ty Fee” will be added to the reg­u­lar visa ap­pli­ca­tion cost. For T&T na­tion­als, a B1/B2 tourist visa cur­rent­ly costs US$185. If grant­ed, the to­tal pay­ment now ris­es to US$435, or al­most TT$3,000. The amount will be ad­just­ed an­nu­al­ly for in­fla­tion and may be in­creased by or­der of the Sec­re­tary of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty.

Who pays this fee?

The fee ap­plies to all non­im­mi­grant visa cat­e­gories—vis­i­tors, stu­dents, and busi­ness trav­ellers—but on­ly if the visa is ap­proved. It is non-re­fund­able and can­not be waived. It does not ap­ply to those who al­ready hold a valid visa.

Can it be re­im­bursed?

Re­im­burse­ment may be pos­si­ble un­der cer­tain con­di­tions, in­clud­ing if the visa hold­er does not en­gage in unau­tho­rised em­ploy­ment, de­parts with­in five days of the visa’s ex­pi­ra­tion, or ad­justs their im­mi­gra­tion sta­tus. Any un­re­im­bursed funds will go to the US Trea­sury. De­tails on the re­im­burse­ment process are not yet avail­able.

When does it take ef­fect?

The im­ple­men­ta­tion date has not been con­firmed, and the US gov­ern­ment has not yet pro­vid­ed in­struc­tions on how the fee will be paid. Guardian Me­dia has con­tact­ed the US Em­bassy in T&T for clar­i­fi­ca­tion.

Are there oth­er new fees?

Yes. The bill in­tro­duces sev­er­al oth­ers, in­clud­ing a US$24 fee for a Form I-94 ap­pli­ca­tion and a US$100 an­nu­al charge for asy­lum seek­ers whose claims re­main pend­ing. All new fees will be sub­ject to an­nu­al in­fla­tion ad­just­ments.