Zambia warns $15000 US visa bond rule poses 'unnecessary financial strain'
The Zambian government's statement, issued on Friday, comes amid growing unease in several countries targeted by the rule, which Washington says is aimed at discouraging overstays on specific visa categories.
' While the (U.S.) government has a prerogative to initiate policy changes, the Zambian government views this development with serious concern, given its potential economic implications on trade, investment, tourism and people-to-people exchanges,' Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe said in the statement. ' This includes the unnecessary financial strain on Zambian nationals.'
Malawi, another African nation affected by the policy, has also raised concerns over the measure. The move comes as Trump intensifies his crackdown on illegal immigration, increasing resources to secure the border with Mexico and arrest people in the U.S. illegally.
Trump-era visa clampdown on African nations
President Donald Trump has implemented a series of immigration measures that have had a pronounced impact on several African nations.
These actions included tightening visa rules, expanding the travel ban in 2020 to cover Nigeria, Eritrea, Sudan, and Tanzania, and launching a visa bond program requiring applicants from certain countries to deposit up to $15,000.
The policy changes, which also imposed stricter vetting on students and temporary workers, have fuelled perceptions of a U.S. increasingly resistant to African engagement.
African governments and rights groups have condemned the measures as discriminatory and damaging to U.S.-Africa relations.
While Washington insists that the visa bond is refundable if travellers comply with visa term such as departing on time, critics argue the requirement disproportionately burdens lower- and middle-income applicants, while leaving wealthier travellers relatively unaffected. Diplomatic discussions are ongoing, with Zambia signalling plans to press the U.S. for either an exemption or a review of the policy.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Epoch Times
6 minutes ago
- Epoch Times
Trump Wants to Change Census to Exclude Illegal Immigrants—What to Know
President Donald Trump is seeking to change how the U.S. Census Bureau collects data and exclude illegal immigrants from the U.S. Census. Trump ordered the Commerce Department to do so and announced the plan via a post to Truth Social, writing that the department would begin work on a 'new and highly accurate CENSUS based on modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024.'
CNBC
6 minutes ago
- CNBC
Healthy Returns: FDA launches program to streamline creation of new U.S. drug manufacturing sites
A new program from the Trump administration aims to make setting up manufacturing plants in the U.S. less of a headache for the pharmaceutical industry. The Food and Drug Administration on Thursday announced a new "PreCheck" program, which will use a two-phase approach to help boost domestic drug manufacturing after it shrunk dramatically over the past two decades. The announcement is a direct response to President Donald Trump's executive order in May calling on the FDA to reduce regulatory hurdles for domestic drug production in the U.S.. That order asked the agency to cut the amount of time it takes to approve new plants by eliminating unnecessary requirements, while also increasing the fees for and inspections of manufacturing facilities abroad. It follows a flurry of plans for new U.S. manufacturing investments from several drugmakers, such as Johnson & Johnson, AbbVie and Eli Lilly, in a bid to build goodwill with Trump. Still, the president could impose tariffs on pharmaceuticals imported into the U.S. any day now — a move that the industry argues could harm innovation and patient access to certain treatments. So, why has Trump made reshoring drug production a key facet of his trade policy? More than half of pharmaceuticals distributed in the U.S. are manufactured overseas, according to a release from the FDA. Only 11% of companies that produce active pharmaceutical ingredients are based in the U.S., while a significant share are in China and India, the agency added. The White House also estimates that it can currently take five to 10 years to build new manufacturing capacity for pharmaceuticals, which it previously called "unacceptable from a national-security standpoint." "Our gradual overreliance on foreign drug manufacturing has created national security risks," FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary said in the release on Thursday. "The FDA PreCheck initiative is one of many steps FDA is taking that can help reverse America's reliance on foreign drug manufacturing and ensure that Americans have a resilient, strong, and domestic drug supply." Here's how the two phases of the program work: The FDA will host a public meeting on Sept. 30, where it will present on the program and discuss other proposals to "overcome current onshoring challenge," among other issues. Until then, concrete details on the program are sparse. It's unclear what requirements the FDA could eliminate, and how much less time it could take to approve new sites. We'll continue to watch as this program gets finalized and implemented, so stay tuned for our coverage! Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at Like it or not, more and more patients are turning to OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT to answer questions about their health care. And the company is paying attention. OpenAI launched its latest large-scale AI model called GPT-5 last week, and the startup said it's the "best model yet" for health-related queries. The product is designed to proactively flag health concerns, ask relevant questions and generate more precise and reliable responses, the company said in a blog post. "Health care is maybe the area where there's the strongest improvement of any (is this one extra?) of any category," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman told CNBC's "Squawk Box" in an interview about GPT-5 on Friday. Altman said health-related questions make up a "huge fraction" of ChatGPT usage. In a post on X, he said he hopes GPT-5's health capabilities will "provide real service to people." OpenAI said GPT-5 scores "significantly higher" than previous models on its health-care AI benchmark called Health Bench. The company released Health Bench in May, and it's designed to measure how well AI models perform in realistic health scenarios. HealthBench was developed alongside 262 doctors from 60 countries. OpenAI said it's based on 5,000 conversations that simulate interactions between individual users or clinicians and AI models. OpenAI is also touting GPT-5 as a helpful tool for medical research. The company released a two-minute-long video with Dr. Derya Unutmaz, a professor and human immunologist, which demonstrates how he has been using the model. Unutmaz said GPT-5 is able to help him brainstorm, interpret data and save him time by predicting outcomes of potential experiments. "I think GPT-5 will help the patients to advocate for themselves, and I think that will empower the patients to feel more confident when they talk to their doctors," Unutmaz said in the video. Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Ashley at
USA Today
7 minutes ago
- USA Today
Newsom mocks Trump in all-caps post promising a 2026 Democratic victory
California Gov. Gavin Newsom mocked President Donald Trump with an all-caps tweet amid a heated redistricting effort in Texas. WASHINGTON − California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom mocked President Donald Trump with an all-caps tweet amid a heated redistricting effort in Texas that could give Republicans up to five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives next year. Mimicking Trump's all-caps social media style, Newsom trolled the president as "DONALD 'TACO' TRUMP," and suggested California would soon go forward with its own redistricting effor to offset the Republican effort in Texas. The post comes as Newsom urged Trump in an Aug. 11 letter to stop the redistricting efforts, arguing that Trump was 'playing with fire' and 'risking the destabilization of our democracy.' Newsom added that if Trump doesn't stand down, he would redraw the congressional map in California to counter the Texas effort. 'DONALD 'TACO' TRUMP, AS MANY CALL HIM, 'MISSED' THE DEADLINE!!! CALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE 'BEAUTIFUL MAPS,' THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!). BIG PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH POWERFUL DEMS AND GAVIN NEWSOM — YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR — THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR 'MAGA.' THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! — GN,' Newsom wrote on X, imitating Trump's language in his Truth Social posts. "TACO," an acronym for "Trump Always Chickens Out," is a reference to Trump's ever-shifting tariff deadlines. Newsom's post received more than 3.2 million views. Democratic governors Kathy Hochul of New York and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois have also previously threatened to launch their own redistricting efforts that could give Democrats a boost, sparking a tit-for-tat. Redistricting is required by federal law every 10 years following the release of new U.S. Census Bureau figures. However, Trump encouraged Texas Republicans to jumpstart the process in the middle of the decade. The Texas Senate on Aug. 12 approved the new set of congressional lines by a vote of 19-2, according to the Texas Tribune. The Texas redistricting effort is stalled in the state House, where most Democratic representatives have fled the state, denying majority Republicans a quorum needed to pass the measure. Trump said Aug. 5 that Republicans "are entitled to five more seats" in Texas because of his 2024 election victory there. Republicans currently hold the U.S. House by a razor thin margin. Newsom said that he is eyeing a special election in November so voters could weigh in on a ballot measure that would allow for a new House map in California ahead of the 2026 midterms.
