Sen. J.D. Vance, an Ohio Republican, has proposed a radical new immigration policy, which, if adopted, would likely trigger a plunge in U.S. visits from many foreign nationals — unless they happen to be well-off. While Vance’s extremist bill has no real hope of becoming law, his promotion of it signals how far the nativist right is willing to go to attack the idea of immigration itself.
Released Thursday, Vance’s Timely Departure Act would require foreign nationals hoping to enter the U.S. on temporary visas to pay between $5,000 and $15,000 in a bond or cash payment to the Department of Homeland Security. They would then get that sum back only if they exit the U.S. in accordance with the terms of their visas. The idea is that the policy would deter visitors from overstaying their visas, which is a key contributor to the undocumented immigrant population in the U.S. (It should be noted, though, that overstays represent a very small percentage of expected departures — less than 2 percent in 2019). There would be exceptions for some temporary visas, such as diplomatic visas, as well as for foreign nationals enrolled in the Visa Waiver Program.
The people least likely to be hindered by extra paperwork or having to move around a big chunk of money would be elites.
As Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, the policy director for the American Immigration Council, noted, this policy would require many "coming on most nonimmigrant visas — including tourists, students, business visitors, religious workers, air and marine crew workers, and more” to pay at least $5,000 every time they want to enter the country.
Such a policy would take a wrecking ball to America’s economic and cultural life. Requiring tourists, students and businesspeople to scrounge up thousands of dollars to visit the U.S. even briefly would lock out huge swaths of visitors because the cost would be prohibitive. The U.S. is the most affluent country in the world, and, even so, most Americans don’t have the financial bandwidth to take on even a $400 surprise expense without taking on debt. Now make that expense many times higher and charge it to people from countries with mostly lower income ranges. The fact that people would get their money back at departure doesn’t address the issue that most people around the world don't have access to big sums of cash or to substantial credit. The result would be that the U.S. would become an impossible travel destination for many and an undesirable travel destination for others.
It’s not just that business meetings would relocate and tourism would decline, it would also reshape shipping, logistics and aviation. “Imagine the outcry among airlines and shipping companies if they have to pony up tens of thousands of dollars of cash every time a crew member” entered, said Reichlin-Melnick. “You’d see airlines pulling out of the U.S. market, and more.”
The people least likely to be hindered by extra paperwork or having to move around a big chunk of money would be elites. While some MAGA types probably see this as a strategy for eliminating immigration from “s---hole countres,” in reality it would affect many foreign nationals from affluent countries as well.
This bill defies common sense, and it’s hard to imagine it getting traction even in the Republican caucus. As beholden as the party is to nationalist rhetoric, its members still have a general understanding that U.S. openness to legal immigration is crucial to its pre-eminent global status.
But the bill is still a useful document in its distillation of the values of the hardcore MAGA caucus. Taken as more of a fantasy bill than a practical one, what it says is that ideally America would be far more isolated and cut off from the world, with the exception of a narrow band of elites. Their vision of greatness sounds awfully backward to me.
