The State Department is considering requiring some green card applicants to hand over thousands of dollars in the Trump administration’s latest bid to ensure new arrivals to the US can support themselves.
Some officials have floated requiring would-be legal permanent residents to submit a $100,000 bond if applying at a US consulate overseas, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
Others said the deposit could fluctuate depending on individual cases.
Green card holders would likely be repaid upon becoming US citizens, a process that takes at least five years.
“President Trump has made clear that those who wish to immigrate to the United States must be financially self-sufficient,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott told the Journal, confirming that the administration was exploring ways under existing law to require the bond, which could also be posted by a green card applicant’s relatives.
The report emerged hours after the Trump administration revived the so-called “public charge” rule, which could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits such as food stamps, Medicaid, and housing vouchers.
Under the rule, green card applicants must show they won’t be taxpayer burdens, or “public charges.”
“We are reaffirming the requirement of self-reliance, protecting public resources, and ending policies that encouraged dependency on hard-working American taxpayers,” the Department of Homeland Security said in an X post Thursday morning.
The public charge rule was first implemented in February 2020, during Trump’s first term, but was scrapped by former President Joe Biden.
