In a world rife with evolving national security threats, immigration policy must be more than a humanitarian exercise—it must be a firewall. Unfortunately, that firewall developed gaping holes under the Biden government, as evidenced by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) June 2024 report. The report makes clear what many of us have long feared: that systemic failures in our immigration and asylum vetting process are putting Americans at unnecessary risk. Fortunately, President Donald Trump has the record and the roadmap to fix it.

The OIG’s findings paint a troubling picture.

Between October 2017 and March 2023, over 400,000 affirmative asylum applicants were not properly vetted because U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) failed to fully utilize all federal databases, including critical classified data sources.

Meanwhile, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) lacked access to key information to screen migrants crossing the border. This isn’t a clerical error—it’s a critical national security vulnerability, potentially allowing bad actors to exploit our follies.

EXTREME VETTING.

President Trump’s Executive Order 14161, signed in early 2025, wisely recognized this danger and moved to restore rigorous screening processes across the federal government. In contrast to the Biden era’s open-door naïveté, EO 14161 returns to the core doctrine that defined Trump’s first term: extreme vetting.

The term—coined by Trump in 2016—captured the national mood then and remains even more relevant today. But reinstating vetting protocols isn’t enough. We must fund them sustainably and fairly. The solution? Charge visa applicants from high-risk countries a supplemental fee to finance their own enhanced background checks.

Think of it as a “national security co-pay.”

If you want to enter the United States from a nation with a documented history of terrorism, failed governance, or limited identity infrastructure—Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and the like—you must pay an “extreme vetting fee.” This is not a punishment; it’s policy with a purpose. The U.S. taxpayer should not be financially penalized for shouldering the costs of assessing whether a Syrian national spent the last five years working in a store or a sleeper cell.

America has finite resources. The Biden government failed to allocate or coordinate those resources, allowing asylum backlogs to balloon while scrutiny waned. Their own Inspector General literally wrote the book on the damage. Trump can fix that—not by throwing more taxpayer money into the bureaucratic bonfire–but by making the system’s users pay into it.

Some will cry foul, claiming this introduces a barrier to entry for impoverished refugees. But let’s be honest: if someone from a terrorist hotbed can’t afford an extra $200 so we can dig deeper into their background, do we want them? This is not about denying access to the truly vulnerable; it’s about denying entry to those who think of our vetting process as a box-check instead of a national security gauntlet.

And yes, deterrence has its place. If a would-be applicant from a war-torn region rethinks their plans because the vetting process is too rigorous or too costly, that’s not a bug—that’s a feature. The United States is not obligated to open its doors to every person seeking a better life. It is obligated to protect its citizens first. Every dollar we fail to spend wisely on immigration security is a dollar we may spend responding to attacks, criminal activity, or even bureaucratic chaos.

JOINING AN INTERNATIONAL CONSENSUS.

Let’s also address the elephant in the policy room: even under the best conditions, verifying the identities and intentions of migrants from unstable nations is extraordinarily difficult. In Afghanistan, for example, biometric data may be inconsistent, records may have been destroyed, and corruption can undermine documentation. In Syria, passport fraud is rampant, with ISIS and other groups having exploited government printing presses to produce fake credentials. In these cases, the notion that we can vet applicants on a shoestring budget is laughable. We need not just more data, but more time, more cross-agency collaboration, and more human intelligence—all of which cost money.

President Trump understood this from the outset. His original travel restrictions in 2017, heavily criticized then, were eventually upheld by the Supreme Court because they reflected a sober assessment of risk, not an arbitrary rejection of immigrants. Critics shouted “Muslim ban” while ignoring the actual methodology: countries were chosen not based on religion, but on their ability—or failure—to provide reliable information for vetting. That principle should guide any future Trump policy, only now with added teeth: If we go to extraordinary lengths to confirm that someone is not a threat, they should help pay for that effort.

Such a policy would not be unprecedented. The United Kingdom already charges noncitizens visa fees scaled by category and risk. Australia levies surcharges for security and medical screenings. These countries understand that sovereignty is not free, and neither is safety. By implementing a risk-based pricing model for visa vetting, the U.S. would join this rational global consensus.

PAYING FOR THE LOCKS.

Moreover, this strategy would help depoliticize immigration enforcement. Instead of debating abstract quotas or arbitrary bans, we would apply an objective financial filter tied directly to risk. Want to migrate from a stable, transparent country? Fine—your visa costs stay low. Want to enter from a nation where vetting takes three times longer due to fractured civil registries and terrorist infiltration? Prepare to pay more for the privilege.

Most Americans support this kind of common-sense approach. A 2023 Pew Research poll found that 72 percent of Americans favor stronger vetting for migrants from high-risk countries, and a majority believe immigration should be tied to national interest rather than emotional appeals. The Biden government ignored this sentiment. A second Trump term must embrace it. Trump has secured our Southern Border with Mexico – now he must clean up Biden’s mess and secure our visa process.

“Extreme vetting” is not a buzzword—it’s a necessary evolution in a dangerous world. The most effective way to operationalize it is through a sustainable, self-funding mechanism that aligns with fairness, accountability, and national interest. The Trump Administration can make it official policy: If you want to come to America, you’ll have to go through the front door—and help pay for the locks.

Matt Gaetz served on the Judiciary and Armed Services Committees of the United States House of Representatives from 2017-2024. He hosts “The Matt Gaetz Show” nightly on One America News.

Image by Gage Skidmore (CC)