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 mild of a kerosene lamp.
Throughout the day, he helped his mother and father look after the household’s few goats and tended their half-acre maize discipline in Emanyaleni village, some 400km (249 miles) from the capital metropolis, Lilongwe. By night time, he studied till his eyes stung, satisfied that training was the one strategy to escape the poverty that had trapped his village for generations.
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That conviction carried him by means of his closing examinations, the place he ranked among the many high 10 college students in his secondary college.
Then, this Might, 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, america.
“I believed life was about to alter for the primary time,” Chunda informed Al Jazeera. “For my total household, not simply myself.”
Information of the award introduced celebration to his grass-thatched house, the place household and neighbours gathered to mark what felt like a uncommon triumph. His mother and father, subsistence farmers battling drought and rising fertiliser prices, marked the event by slaughtering their Most worthy 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 turn out to be a beacon of hope for the youngsters round him.
However simply months later, that dream unravelled.
The US embassy knowledgeable Chunda that earlier than travelling, he must put up a $15,000 visa bond – greater than 20 years of the typical earnings in Malawi, the place the gross home product (GDP) per particular person is simply $580, and most households reside on lower than $2 a day, in keeping with the World Financial institution.
“That scholarship provide was the primary time I believed the world outdoors my village was opening up for me,” he stated. “Now it feels as if I’m being knowledgeable that regardless of how exhausting I work, doorways will stay sealed by cash I’ll by no means have.”
A sudden barrier
Chunda is one among 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 beneath one other identify.
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 put up 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 counsel in any other case.
In 2023, the division reported that Malawian guests had an overstay charge of roughly 14 p.c, 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 12 months to supply 30 years’ value of earnings 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 supposed to discourage overstays, and stated it didn’t immediately goal pupil visas.
Whereas pupil visas, often known as F-1s, are technically exempt from the bond requirement within the pilot section of the programme, in observe the state of affairs is extra sophisticated, observers notice.
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 illustration – they have to apply for a separate B-2 vacationer visa.
That implies that many scholarship recipients want vacationer visas to journey forward of the tutorial 12 months. 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 adjusting their standing to F-1 as soon as they’re there, that is legally permissible, but it surely have to be accepted by the US Citizenship and Immigration Providers. The visa bond necessities make this pathway way more sophisticated for Malawian college students.
Even for individuals who handle to boost the funds, there is no such thing as a assure of success. Posting a bond doesn’t guarantee approval, and refunds are solely granted if travellers depart on time by means of one among three designated US airports: Logan in Boston, Kennedy in New York, and Dulles outdoors Washington.
Kajoloweka added that the coverage additionally locations extraordinary discretion within the palms 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 gradual pipeline of Malawian expertise to American universities.
“Malawi is dependent upon its brightest younger minds buying abilities 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 docs, engineers, scientists, and leaders … It’s mainly a mind drain in reverse.”
The visa bond has strained a long time of diplomatic and academic ties between the US and Malawi, a relationship constructed by programmes courting from the Sixties and strengthened by sustained funding in training and growth.
Final month, Malawi’s overseas minister, Nancy Tembo, known as the coverage a “de facto ban” that discriminates towards 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 economic system, not everybody can handle this. For these of us chasing additional research, these goals at the moment are a mirage.”
Samson has stopped monitoring his electronic mail for scholarship responses. He feels there may be little level, believing that even when a suggestion had been to reach, the general prices of finding out within the US would stay far past his attain.
Part 214(b) of US immigration regulation already presumes each visa applicant intends to immigrate until confirmed in any other case, forcing college students to show robust ties to their house 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 state of affairs is much more troublesome 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 beneath the situation of anonymity to guard future visa prospects. “My six staff depend on me. If I can’t journey, I’ll should ship them house.”
Civil society teams, such because the one Kajoloweka helms, are mobilising towards the coverage. The group is documenting “real-life tales of affected college students,” lobbying each domestically and internationally, and “participating companions in america and Europe to boost the alarm”.
“We refuse to let this concern quietly extinguish the hopes of Malawian youth,” he stated. “This bond is a barrier, however boundaries 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 believed life was about to alter for the primary time,” he lamented. “For my total household, not simply myself. I now should look elsewhere to understand my dream.”
This text is printed in collaboration with Egab.
