Trump Is About to Require Huge Bond for Green Card Applicants — and It’s Long Overdue

The Trump administration is considering something so obviously correct that the only surprising thing is it took this long to propose it: requiring green card applicants to post a $100,000 bond before entering the United States, refunded only after they become citizens.

The State Department is developing the proposal. The bond amount could vary by case and country, with officials considering a pilot program in select nations before broader implementation. The stated objective is simple and unarguable: people who immigrate to America should be financially self-sufficient. They should add to this country, not subtract from it.

Milton Friedman explained the underlying logic decades ago with characteristic precision. Open immigration worked when America had no welfare state — because the absence of a safety net was itself a filter. People who came here came to build something. They had no choice but to succeed on their own terms because there was no alternative. That filter no longer exists. We have built an extensive social welfare apparatus, and the combination of open immigration and a generous welfare state is, as Friedman argued plainly, an untenable one. You cannot have both. A welfare state requires limits on who accesses it, or it collapses under the weight of unlimited demand.