(USNewsMag.com) – The number of foreign nationals who stay beyond their visas and become illegals is said to have reached a record high under President Biden, according to the DHS.
According to Jessica Vaughan, Director of Research for the Center for Immigration Studies, the number is likely to be a DHS record high. In contrast, there were around 482,000 visa expirations in FY 2015. The 3.64% overstay rate in 2022 was more than twice as high as in prior years.
In only the last year, almost 44%, or more than 172,000 Venezuelans, have stayed past their visa expirations. Nearly 22,000 Colombians have stayed beyond their visas. The number of people from the Dominican Republic was above 25,000; citizens from China were about 21,000; Indian citizens were nearly 16,750; and Ecuador saw 14,000 who overstayed their time limits.
Over the course of Fiscal Year 2022, which began in October 2021 and ended in September 2022, over 854,000 non-citizens stayed beyond their visa permits. That’s almost 795,000 people who haven’t been deported from the United States. About 59,000 people departed the country only because their visas had run out.
According to data gathered from September 2020 FY end through October 2021, over 190,00 illegal migrants from Fiscal Year 2021 were still present in the United States as of February of the current year.
Vaughan recommends stricter enforcement of federal immigration law regarding visa expirations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and calls on Congress to impose the same consequences for these violations that are imposed on those convicted of unlawfully crossing the border.
Finally, Vaughan argues that Congress should keep pressuring DHS to construct the “biometric entry-exit system” that would aid in protecting the validity of visa programs, a government project that has been postponed for decades.
Between 11 and 22 million undocumented migrants are now residing in the United States. Half of all unlawful migrants are thought to have entered the nation legally but stayed beyond their visas.
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