Fast and Furious Developments Bode Ill for Visa Applicants or “Why Does 90-year-old Grandma need to travel 1,000 miles to apply for a visa?”

Posted on July 28, 2025

If there is any better indicator of Trump’s Fortress America policies – deterring and discouraging legal visitors, students, workers, entrepreneurs, and immigrants – one need only look at the most recent visa developments:

1. There will be no more visa interview waiver for those applicants for visas under the age of 14 and over 79. So young kids, including babies, will have to accompany their parents to interviews. For those over 79, there is an exception: if they are applying within 12 months of the prior visa’s expiration. Otherwise, 80, 90 and older visa applicants will need to travel to the embassies and consulates to convince a consul that they really do not plan to overstay their visas.
2. Congress has passed a $250 visa integrity fee, as well as tacked on fees for ESTA visitors ($40) and Chinese ($30) visitors. The $250 integrity fee is supposed to be refundable if the visa holder complies with the terms of the visa, but no details have been released about how applicants will actually receive a refund.
3. The Department of State has decided to limit the maximum visa validity of citizens of more than 50 countries to 1-entry, 3 months. This applies to many types of visas, including B (visitor), F (student), H (professional), J (exchange), and O (extraordinary ability) visa categories. Most of those countries are in Africa, and include Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, and Ghana.
4. While the Department of State has resumed student visa interviews, it has initiated a heightened review process of students’ social media and online presence. Given the additional time required and information that may come to light at an interview, it is anticipated that Section 221(g) administrative processing will be invoked more and more for post-interview vetting.
5. Judging by the number of calls that we are receiving and as noted in a previous blog, consuls continue to weaponize Section 214(b) to deny visitor and student visas on legitimate and not-so-legitimate grounds. The strange part: because of these 214(b) denials, thousands of people around the world will be forced to go through the green card process and become permanent residents of the United States – just to visit a family member, relative, or friend. Does that make sense?

As always, there are nuances, exceptions, and other limitations. But the trends are already obvious and ominous: the number of international visitors is down since Trump took office, with tourism-dependent cities such as Las Vegas already hit hard. Student visa issuance is down 22%. Even the Venezuelan Little League championship baseball team cannot get visas to play in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Forewarned is to be forearmed. If you are having or anticipate possible visa problems, feel free to reach out to us.