Lilongwe, Malawi – Within the rural valleys of Malawi, the place houses are constructed of mud and grass, and electrical energy is scarce, Tamala Chunda spent his evenings bent over borrowed textbooks, studying by the dim gentle of a kerosene lamp.
In the course of the day, he helped his dad and mom take care of the household’s few goats and tended their half-acre maize subject in Emanyaleni village, some 400km (249 miles) from the capital metropolis, Lilongwe. By evening, he studied till his eyes stung, satisfied that training was the one option to escape the poverty that had trapped his village for generations.
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That conviction carried him by way of his closing examinations, the place he ranked among the many prime 10 college students in his secondary college.
Then, this Could, a letter arrived that appeared to vindicate each late-night hour and each sacrificed childhood sport: a full scholarship to the College of Dayton in Ohio, the US.
“I assumed life was about to vary for the primary time,” Chunda informed Al Jazeera. “For my complete household, not simply myself.”
Information of the award introduced celebration to his grass-thatched residence, the place household and neighbours gathered to mark what felt like a uncommon triumph. His dad and mom, subsistence farmers battling drought and rising fertiliser prices, marked the event by slaughtering their most dear goat, a uncommon luxurious in a village the place many households survive on a single meal a day.
Distant neighbours even walked for miles to supply their congratulations to the boy who had develop into a beacon of hope for the kids round him.
However simply months later, that dream unravelled.
The US embassy knowledgeable Chunda that earlier than travelling, he must publish a $15,000 visa bond – greater than 20 years of the typical revenue in Malawi, the place the gross home product (GDP) per particular person is simply $580, and most households stay on lower than $2 a day, based on the World Financial institution.
“That scholarship provide was the primary time I assumed the world exterior my village was opening up for me,” he stated. “Now it feels as if I’m being knowledgeable that regardless of how laborious I work, doorways will stay sealed by cash I’ll by no means have.”
A sudden barrier
Chunda is one in every of tons of of Malawian college students and travellers caught within the sweep of a brand new US visa rule that critics say quantities to a journey ban underneath one other title.
On August 20, 2025, the US State Division launched a yearlong “pilot programme” requiring many enterprise (B-1) and vacationer (B-2) visa candidates from Malawi and neighbouring Zambia to publish refundable bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 earlier than travelling.
The programme, modelled on a proposal first floated through the Trump administration in 2020, is meant to curb visa overstays. However Homeland Safety’s personal statistics recommend in any other case.
In 2023, the division reported that Malawian guests had an overstay charge of roughly 14 %, which is decrease than that of a number of African nations not topic to the bond requirement, together with Angola, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
“It’s the equal of asking a farmer who earns lower than $500 a yr to provide 30 years’ value of revenue in a single day,” stated Charles Kajoloweka, govt director of Youth and Society, a Malawian civil society organisation that focuses on training. “For our college students, it’s much less of a bond and extra of an exclusion order.”
A US embassy spokesperson in Lilongwe told local media that the bond programme was meant to discourage overstays, and stated it didn’t instantly goal pupil visas.
Whereas pupil visas, often known as F-1s, are technically exempt from the bond requirement within the pilot part of the programme, in apply the scenario is extra difficult, observers word.
Worldwide college students on F-1s are allowed to enter the US as much as 30 days earlier than their programme begin date. Nonetheless, for these needing to reach previous to that – for orientation programmes, housing preparations, or pre-college programs, as an example – they need to apply for a separate B-2 vacationer visa.
That signifies that many scholarship recipients want vacationer visas to journey forward of the tutorial yr. However with out funds to safe these visas, the scholarships can slip away.
For college students coming into the US on vacationer visas with the intention of fixing their standing to F-1 as soon as they’re there, that is legally permissible, but it surely should be accepted by the US Citizenship and Immigration Providers. The visa bond necessities make this pathway rather more difficult for Malawian college students.
Even for many who handle to lift the funds, there isn’t a assure of success. Posting a bond doesn’t guarantee approval, and refunds are solely granted if travellers depart on time by way of one in every of three designated US airports: Logan in Boston, Kennedy in New York, and Dulles exterior Washington.
Kajoloweka added that the coverage additionally locations extraordinary discretion within the arms of particular person consular officers, who resolve which candidates should pay bonds and the way a lot.
College students in limbo
For many years, programmes such because the Fulbright scholarships, the Mandela Washington Fellowship, and EducationUSA have created a gentle pipeline of Malawian expertise to American universities.
“Malawi is determined by its brightest younger minds buying expertise overseas, particularly in fields the place native universities lack capability,” stated Kajoloweka. “By shutting down entry to US establishments, we’re shrinking the pool of future medical doctors, engineers, scientists, and leaders … It’s mainly a mind drain in reverse.”
The visa bond has strained many years of diplomatic and academic ties between the US and Malawi, a relationship constructed by programmes relationship from the Sixties and bolstered by sustained funding in training and improvement.
Final month, Malawi’s international minister, Nancy Tembo, known as the coverage a “de facto ban” that discriminates in opposition to residents of one of many world’s poorest nations.
“This transfer has shattered the plans most Malawians needed to journey,” stated Abraham Samson, a pupil who had utilized for US scholarships earlier than the bond was introduced. “With our financial system, not everybody can handle this. For these of us chasing additional research, these goals are actually a mirage.”
Samson has stopped monitoring his e mail for scholarship responses. He feels there’s little level, believing that even when a suggestion have been to reach, the general prices of learning within the US would stay far past his attain.
Part 214(b) of US immigration regulation already presumes each visa applicant intends to immigrate except confirmed in any other case, forcing college students to reveal sturdy ties to their residence nation.
The bond provides one other burden, whereby candidates should now show each their intention to return and that they’ve entry to wealth past the technique of most.
Hope on maintain
The scenario is much more tough for small enterprise homeowners.
One businessman has spent twenty years creating his small electronics import firm in Lilongwe, counting on common journeys to the US to determine cost-effective suppliers.
Within the aftermath of the mandate, the $15,000 visa bond has disrupted his plans, forcing him to purchase from middlemen at outrageous costs.
“Each delay eats away at my margins,” he defined, talking underneath the situation of anonymity to guard future visa prospects. “My six staff depend on me. If I can’t journey, I’ll must ship them residence.”
Civil society teams, such because the one Kajoloweka helms, are mobilising in opposition to the coverage. The group is documenting “real-life tales of affected college students,” lobbying each regionally and internationally, and “partaking companions in the US and Europe to lift the alarm”.
“We refuse to let this subject quietly extinguish the hopes of Malawian youth,” he stated. “This bond is a barrier, however obstacles could be challenged. Your goals are legitimate, your aspirations are professional, and your voices matter. The world should not shut you out,” he added, talking usually to Malawian youth.
In the meantime, again in his village, Chunda contemplates a future far totally different from the one he had imagined. His scholarship to the College of Dayton sits unused, a reminder of a possibility denied.
“I assumed life was about to vary for the primary time,” he lamented. “For my complete household, not simply myself. I now must look elsewhere to grasp my dream.”
This text is printed in collaboration with Egab.
