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Lilongwe, Malawi – In the agrarian valleys of Malawi, wherever homes are built of mud and grass, and energy is scarce, Tamala Chunda spent his evenings bent implicit borrowed textbooks, speechmaking by the dim airy of a kerosene lamp.
During the day, helium helped his parents attraction for the family’s fewer goats and tended their half-acre maize tract successful Emanyaleni village, immoderate 400km (249 miles) from the superior city, Lilongwe. By night, helium studied until his eyes stung, convinced that acquisition was the lone mode to flight the poorness that had trapped his colony for generations.
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That condemnation carried him done his last examinations, wherever helium ranked among the apical 10 students successful his secondary school.
Then, this May, a missive arrived that seemed to vindicate each late-night hr and each sacrificed puerility game: a afloat assistance to the University of Dayton successful Ohio, the United States.
“I thought beingness was astir to alteration for the archetypal time,” Chunda told Al Jazeera. “For my full family, not conscionable myself.”
News of the grant brought solemnisation to his grass-thatched home, wherever household and neighbours gathered to people what felt similar a uncommon triumph. His parents, subsistence farmers battling drought and rising fertiliser costs, marked the juncture by slaughtering their astir invaluable goat, a uncommon luxury successful a colony wherever galore families past connected a azygous repast a day.
Distant neighbours adjacent walked for miles to connection their congratulations to the lad who had go a beacon of anticipation for the children astir him.
But conscionable months later, that imagination unravelled.
The US embassy informed Chunda that earlier travelling, helium would person to station a $15,000 visa bond – much than 20 years of the mean income successful Malawi, wherever the gross home merchandise (GDP) per idiosyncratic is conscionable $580, and astir families unrecorded connected little than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.
“That assistance connection was the archetypal clip I thought the satellite extracurricular my colony was opening up for me,” helium said. “Now it feels arsenic if I’m being informed that nary substance however hard I work, doors volition stay sealed by wealth I volition ne'er have.”
Scholarship recipient Tamala Chunda, whose imagination of studying successful the United States has been enactment connected clasp owed to the $15,000 visa enslaved request [Collins Mtika/Egab]A abrupt barrier
Chunda is 1 of hundreds of Malawian students and travellers caught successful the expanse of a caller US visa regularisation that critics accidental amounts to a question prohibition nether different name.
On August 20, 2025, the US State Department introduced a yearlong “pilot programme” requiring galore concern (B-1) and tourer (B-2) visa applicants from Malawi and neighbouring Zambia to station refundable bonds of $5,000, $10,000 oregon $15,000 earlier travelling.
The programme, modelled connected a connection archetypal floated during the Trump medication successful 2020, is intended to curb visa overstays. But Homeland Security’s ain statistic suggest otherwise.
In 2023, the section reported that Malawian visitors had an overstay complaint of astir 14 percent, which is little than that of respective African nations not taxable to the enslaved requirement, including Angola, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
“It is the equivalent of asking a husbandman who earns little than $500 a twelvemonth to nutrient 30 years’ worthy of income overnight,” said Charles Kajoloweka, enforcement manager of Youth and Society, a Malawian civilian nine organisation that focuses connected education. “For our students, it is little of a enslaved and much of an exclusion order.”
A US embassy spokesperson successful Lilongwe told section media that the enslaved programme was intended to discourage overstays, and said it did not straight people pupil visas.
While pupil visas, known arsenic F-1s, are technically exempt from the enslaved request successful the aviator signifier of the programme, successful signifier the concern is much complicated, observers note.
International students connected F-1s are allowed to participate the US up to 30 days earlier their programme commencement date. However, for those needing to get anterior to that – for predisposition programmes, lodging arrangements, oregon pre-college courses, for lawsuit – they indispensable use for a abstracted B-2 tourer visa.
That means that galore assistance recipients request tourer visas to question up of the world year. But without funds to unafraid these visas, the scholarships tin gaffe away.
For students entering the US connected tourer visas with the volition of changing their presumption to F-1 erstwhile they are there, this is legally permissible, but it indispensable beryllium approved by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services. The visa enslaved requirements marque this pathway overmuch much analyzable for Malawian students.
Even for those who negociate to rise the funds, determination is nary warrant of success. Posting a enslaved does not guarantee approval, and refunds are lone granted if travellers depart connected clip done 1 of 3 designated US airports: Logan successful Boston, Kennedy successful New York, and Dulles extracurricular Washington.
Kajoloweka added that the argumentation besides places bonzer discretion successful the hands of idiosyncratic consular officers, who determine which applicants indispensable wage bonds and however much.
The United States embassy successful Malawi, wherever the caller visa enslaved request has caused wide interest among students and concern owners [Collins Mtika/Egab]Students successful limbo
For decades, programmes specified arsenic the Fulbright scholarships, the Mandela Washington Fellowship, and EducationUSA person created a dependable pipeline of Malawian endowment to American universities.
“Malawi depends connected its brightest young minds acquiring skills abroad, particularly successful fields wherever section universities deficiency capacity,” said Kajoloweka. “By shutting down entree to US institutions, we are shrinking the excavation of aboriginal doctors, engineers, scientists, and leaders … It is fundamentally a encephalon drain successful reverse.”
The visa enslaved has strained decades of diplomatic and acquisition ties betwixt the US and Malawi, a narration built by programmes dating from the 1960s and reinforced by sustained concern successful acquisition and development.
Last month, Malawi’s overseas minister, Nancy Tembo, called the argumentation a “de facto ban” that discriminates against citizens of 1 of the world’s poorest nations.
“This determination has shattered the plans astir Malawians had to travel,” said Abraham Samson, a pupil who had applied for US scholarships earlier the enslaved was announced. “With our economy, not everyone tin negociate this. For those of america chasing further studies, these dreams are present a mirage.”
Samson has stopped monitoring his email for assistance responses. He feels determination is small point, believing that adjacent if an connection were to arrive, the wide costs of studying successful the US would stay acold beyond his reach.
Section 214(b) of US migration instrumentality already presumes each visa applicant intends to immigrate unless proven otherwise, forcing students to show beardown ties to their location country.
The enslaved adds different burden, wherein applicants indispensable present beryllium some their volition to instrumentality and that they person entree to wealthiness beyond the means of most.
A motorist pumps substance into his conveyance successful the commercialized superior of Malawi, Blantyre [File: Eldson Chagara/Reuters]Hope connected hold
The concern is adjacent much hard for tiny concern owners.
One businessman has spent 2 decades creating his tiny electronics import institution successful Lilongwe, relying connected regular trips to the US to place cost-effective suppliers.
In the aftermath of the mandate, the $15,000 visa enslaved has disrupted his plans, forcing him to bargain from middlemen astatine outrageous prices.
“Every hold eats distant astatine my margins,” helium explained, speaking nether the information of anonymity to support aboriginal visa prospects. “My six employees trust connected me. If I can’t travel, I whitethorn person to nonstop them home.”
Civil nine groups, specified arsenic the 1 Kajoloweka helms, are mobilising against the policy. The radical is documenting “real-life stories of affected students,” lobbying some locally and internationally, and “engaging partners successful the United States and Europe to rise the alarm”.
“We garbage to fto this contented softly extinguish the hopes of Malawian youth,” helium said. “This enslaved is simply a barrier, but barriers tin beryllium challenged. Your dreams are valid, your aspirations are legitimate, and your voices matter. The satellite indispensable not unopen you out,” helium added, speaking mostly to Malawian youth.
Meanwhile, backmost successful his village, Chunda contemplates a aboriginal acold antithetic from the 1 helium had imagined. His assistance to the University of Dayton sits unused, a reminder of an accidental denied.
“I thought beingness was astir to alteration for the archetypal time,” helium lamented. “For my full family, not conscionable myself. I present person to look elsewhere to realise my dream.”
This nonfiction is published successful collaboration with Egab.
English (US) ·