VISA Overstays make up 2/3rds of the Annual Increase of Illegal Aliens

• In 2014, about 4.5 million US residents, or 42 percent of the total undocumented population, were overstays.
• Overstays accounted for about two-thirds (66 percent) of those who arrived (i.e., joined the undocumented population) in 2014.
• Overstays have exceeded EWIs [entries without inspection] every year since 2007, and 600,000 more overstays than EWIs have arrived since 2007.
• Mexico is the leading country for both overstays and EWIs; about one-third of undocumented arrivals from Mexico in 2014 were overstays.
• California has the largest number of overstays (890,000), followed by New York (520,000), Texas (475,000), and Florida (435,000).
• Two states had 47 percent of the 6.4 million EWIs in 2014: California (1.7 million) and Texas (1.3 million).
• The percentage of overstays varies widely by state: more than two-thirds of the undocumented who live in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania are overstays. By contrast, the undocumented population in Kansas, Arkansas, and New Mexico consists of fewer than 25 percent overstays. [Emphasis added]

Download the full study.

In a Washington Post article titled “Most immigrants who enter the country do so legally, federal data shows” Christopher Ingraham reports:

A September 2017 Office of Immigration Statistics data brief estimated that in fiscal year 2016, the latest year for which complete data is available, there were 170,000 successful illegal border crossings occurring outside of authorized ports of entry. That’s down roughly 90 percent since 2000, and it’s about one-seventh of the roughly 1.2 million immigrants who obtained lawful permanent resident status via a green card, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The number of successful border crossings doesn’t include illegal entries that happened via border checkpoints (people smuggled in via vehicles, for instance) or over sea. That number is not available for 2016, but in previous years it added anywhere from 10 to 20 percent to the total number of illegal entries, according to a 2016 Institute for Defense Analyses report commissioned by the Department of Homeland Security.

The Florida legislature and Florida’s Congressional delegation must take seriously the use of VISA overstays. They need to understand that, while a border wall is necessary, so to is the need to pass legislation to deport those who overstay their VISAs.

RELATED ARTICLE: British woman caught overstaying visa by 160 days slaps immigration officer