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.

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/

😂😂😂 they ticket mastered tourism.

It just keeps getting dumber.

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

The headline is misleading.

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

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

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

People still want to go to the USA?

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

They enshitified their country 💀

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.

Department of tourism doing the lords woke. Braise jeasus.

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

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

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.

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.

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