Travelers to the U.S. must pay a new $250 'visa integrity fee'

People still want to go to the USA?

My trip to the USA in 2016 was one of the most harrowing, dehumanising, and humiliating experiences of my life. And I'm talking specifically about the actual journey, i.e. after the already lengthy, painful process of acquiring a visa.

They treated me like a terrorist. I had to be escorted by 2 armed big dudes around the airport, and they flipped their shit when I reached for my phone to tell my brother it'd be a while before I can come out (just so he wouldn't worry.) They went through my bag and were handling everything SUPER gently, asking if it was "safe" for them to touch it.

They then confiscated my passport, walked off, and literally never returned it to me. I spent hours asking various members of airport staff what to do because I was screwed. Thankfully, eventually one of them found it in a drawer and gave it back to me.

I was a minor BTW. I have had no desire to repeat the experience since.

Honestly, I wish I was in your shoes because you get to leave this place.
- This is not ok or normal..

They enshitified their country 💀

So as a Canadian here is yet another reason to never visit the newest Oblast USA...

Russia sold Alaska to USA, and instead of buying it back, they took the whole USA to themselves. Now it’s called Amerika Oblast.
Putin prefers to call it "Amerika Oblast".
- we.. all living in Amerika.. Oblast.... coka cola... Wonder bra... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr8ljRgcJNM
Canadian Citizen will not need Visa thou. So this does not apply.

The “visa integrity fee” applies to all visitors who need nonimmigrant visas, which includes tourists, business travelers and international students.

The fee is paid when the visa is issued, according to the provision.

Every international business meeting and conference just cancelled. Visits to Disney World plummet.

Who needs visas: https://brilliantmaps.com/visa-free-usa/

It's only to prevent poor people from South America, Africa, Eastern Europe/Asia. Europe/Japan/Australia is still free to go there.
- Apparently it's a big thing in South America to go to Disney World. Family of 4 just added $1k. It'll make you think twice.
- Europeans still get harassed and randomly arrested. Even Canadians still does.
- So a good chunk of people that would be interested in the World Cup…. Yet another reason not to come for them. FIFA is practically going to have to give away tickets to get people to show up at this rate
- Professor at a large Canadian university here- interest in our EFL study tours from Europe, Latin America, and East Asian countries has skyrocketed this year as MANY of our partner universities are cancelling (or placing on indefinite hiatus) their US programs.
- It's not going to stop people from Europe etc., but a lot of people might reconsider their holiday plans if on top of everything they have to pay these steep fees.
- But also includes China, one of our largest sources of tourism…
Well well, my mortal enemy has reappeared. Jk, hope you have a great weekend.
$250 is a rounding error for most international business travelers. That's the cost of one moderately nice business dinner for 3 people. Between airfare, hotels, and meals, that's less than 10% of the cost of almost all international business trips, with the possible exception of some quick jump from Toronto to Detroit for a lunch meeting.
Same for a lot of international leisure travelers.
This is a filter to keep 'the poors' away
- For 1 person you could, but send over a team and it just added up. You'd do it only if you really need to woo a customer, something that directly adds to the bottom line. If it's for training or a casual meeting, why would you? I know the perception is companies have endless money but they really don't and they pinch pennies plenty. Travel adds up.
- A lot of company travel policies are strangely stingy on cost.
  But even before this, business travel has been diminished. I've been a part of planning for a particular conference in the fall. It usually has a lot of European presenters and lots of meetings among international companies. There's been a bit of a scramble because most of the people that were expected to speak are not going to travel to the US. Our company is spending a bit more to send people over to key clients in Europe near that time to replace the typical meet up at the conference. People were already nervous about Trump's ICE enough to declare the US to not be approved for business travel.
  International tourism is just being screwed all over the place.
Yeah other than Europeans and Canadians but they don't need a fee to discourage them as it is

Cha-ching! There is nothing more to america than money. It's money all the way down.

You can just use that $250 to get pegged by an escort and have a better experience.

250 for 10 mins work sounds like a good time. I should change career paths.

😂😂😂 they ticket mastered tourism.

It just keeps getting dumber.

Just forgot about the monopoly part

do not come to the united states, you safety, dignity, and sense of self, is not protected by the trump administration

Oh, sure it is. Now with the premium subscription for only a one time fee of $5mil you can be assured your safety is in the rights hand. At least until the goal post moves again. Oh, and we both know you can just buy dignity now, right? Right?
So cooked.

As well as spend 5-50000 days in custody anywhere from seatac to the Everglades concentration camp to the el Salvador concentration camp. The US occupied Guantanimo Bay facility is also on the table, though camp X ray is unlikely to be available

Still won't protect you from being whisked off the street, sent to an internment camp for months, then being deported to a 3rd country, and being banned from ever coming ~~van~~ back to the US.

The way things are going, US will enact an optional $1000 "anti-deportation" Visa fee for tourists that want added safeguards against kidnapping.
- We already have “TSA Precheck” which is just a bribe to tell the authorities to not look so closely at your bags and shoes.
This fee is paying for that service.
A van you say....what van?

Boy am I looking forward to the World Cup next year. If things keep trending this way it will be one of the most enjoyable cluster fucks I'll have ever witnessed.

Here’s a reminder that the Olympics was held in Nazi-controlled Berlin, and a team of 18 black athletes from the US thoroughly trounced Hitler’s “master race” talking points by sweeping the medals.
The black athletes then had to return to the US, where segregation was still the norm; many of them struggled to support themselves afterwards, because racism kept them from being hired into any decent jobs.
- Anecdotally, they were treated better in Nazi Germany than 30's America.
  Really tells it all.
Nice track record at FIFA
Russia 2018
Qatar 2022
USA 2026
Morocco 2030
KSA 2034
2038?
It'll be held elsewhere probably.
It should be interesting to see the attendance numbers for similar events in the U.S. vs other North American countries
- The attendance numbers will be:
  "the biggest ever. YUGE. We have so much... The people." - official FIFA statistics

I’m sure this will do wonders for the already declining US tourism industry.

I believe Netanyahu has nominated Trump for the "Tourism person of the year" award

And it means a lot coming from him.

Even if they would pay me $250, I wouldn't want to go there.

Getting handled like a piece of shit at customs, having to pay an outrageous amount of money for the privilege, and can be "taken care of" by the US GeStaPo. Being a foreign tourist in the US is now more like masochism instead of a relaxing holiday.

Why yes, I'd love to pay an additional $250 fee to be shipped off to a gulag.

Department of tourism doing the lords woke. Braise jeasus.

Yeah, that's gonna do wonders for tourism. Another 1000,- for a family of four.

The headline is misleading.

It's a refundable deposit
It's not for all travelers but only for those on non-immigrant visas. Most notably, does not apply for ESTA travelers

Do they say when it will be refunded though? Will it be refunded in cash or in TrumpBux? Isn't Trump going to add a 200 dollars tax on it, because reasons?
Well the article clearly says there hasn’t been any implementation of this so it is unclear how you even pay let alone get a refund. It says it may be years before refunds could happen.
what if i don't have another 250 bucks? Jail? or Venezuela?
- You just don’t get a visa if you don’t have 250 bucks. Actually, you need a proof of funds to apply for the visa anyways

For every traveler who does pay the $250 fee, this is enough to scare away a dozen more who would've spent hundreds or thousands. Good job!

ha ha

There it is. No one is exempt from getting grifted by the orange felon.

See - everyone who's new to the exciting play-by-play of a trump administration - this is how it goes. They do something like this - so boneheaded, so outrageous, so confoundingly incompetent you think, "That's the stupidest thing there ever could be" and then tomorrow - NOPE! New stupidest thing!

We did this already. It was four years of fucking insane hell. Many, many people died.

We're doing it again. I guess we're the stupidest motherfuckers to ever be.

How many countries are going to add reciprocal fees? I hope all of them 😕

Why would we? If someone wants to visit from the US and spend their money here instead of at home, I'll let them.

I don't call it the 'land of the fee and home of the easy payment plan' for nothing.

Well that ought to kill any tourist travel to the US. Way to go drumpf! /s

Goddamn the fee gets a fucking inflation adjustment and we're still on 2009 federal minimum wage? This fucking country.

...do you continue to visit the uncle who has willingly covered himself in shit and lit his house on fire?...really?...

Apparently it's supposed to be refundable when you leave, but also the government is not expecting to issue many refunds?

I'm surprised that such a tourism-crushing policy was not in the news (or at least not in the news that I saw) before the bill passed.

What?
Surely the actual number of people who dont leave is insufficient to make this a significant revenue source.
- Maybe they intend to discourage it via red tape?

I have a feeling they are doing this for people applying for visa for the world cup next year. Last world cup, Qatar saw 3.4 million fan.

With this in place a d we assume third of that number attend the government is looking at maybe 250 million.

Which is paltry. Even if we get the same numbers, that's only $850mil. That's not even enough to fund the fucking cafeteria at the Pentagon.
- Actually, it's enough for building the Pentagon for its original budget (43million in 1941) adjusted to inflation: 767 million. Though building materials and labour are starkly cheaper now, so maybe 2 or 3 Pentagons

What’s funny is that a lot of countries do something like this, but it’s always a far lower price that is insignificant compared to the total vacation cost.

$250 on the other hand is so high that it would impact your vacation budget, specially for the US as it’s selling point is has been that it’s cheap compared to EU or other developed countries.

It’s refundable
- doesnt matter if someone can't fork up the $250 in the first place
- Details on getting refund coming. Cough.
US cheap? 10 bucks a beer cheap? I get five beers and five meals for that price in some areas of Europe.
- A trip to Florida is so cheap for my Canadian standards.
  I’m talking about flights, hotels and food compared to Western Europe.
  I do understand Europe has cheap places and US has expensive ones, the above analysis is more about the past (from Canadian eyes) and not what US has turned into.

I didn't find anything about ESTA, it is not really a visa, but bit similar. Is that also going to be 250$ now? Previously that cost 21$

ESTA isn’t impacted yet by this as it currently only applies to non-immigrant visas. However the “Big Beautiful Bill Act” sets inflation tracked annual increases starting 2026, and the base price is set to raise to $40 sometime this year (I’m not totally sure on when).
- Rebuilding the economy by :: checks my notes:: discouraging tourism. I think that officially fills my "how trump is going to fuck us" bingo card.

Is this also from the Nazi playbook?

Let's see, we got gestapo kidnappings, unlawful detainment, concentration camps, sycophant loyalists...