The addition of another 500,000 immigrants who overstayed their visas, together with the wave of undocumented youths swarming in from Central America, has jumped the estimate of illegals in the U.S. to 12 million, about half of whom are also immigrants to never left the U.S. after coming in on legal visas, according to new research.
The total number of “overstays” is 4 million to 5.5 million, and that was before the Department of Homeland Security Tuesday night revealed that another 527,127 who received temporary visas under the Visa Waiver Program or B Visa in 2015 overstayed their permits.
The Center for Immigration Security now estimates that the total population of undocumented or illegal immigrants is at 12 million, the highest ever.
Jessica M. Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, said that under President Obama, the issuing of temporary visas has exploded.
“I found that visa issuances have gone up 25 percent under Obama, and Visa Waiver entries and Border Crossing Card entries (Mexicans) have gone up a lot too,” she told Secrets.
Vaughan, in a CIS blog post today, said that DHS likely underestimated the number of overstays in the new report. The reason, she said, was that not all avenues into the U.S. were covered.
“DHS did not examine the records of visitors who entered by land, which is more than three-quarters of all admissions to the United States. Nor did it track the records of visitors granted visas for purposes other than business or pleasure, such as students, guest workers or exchange visitors. These categories represent a much smaller share of all annual arrivals, but still account for several million admissions per year. Some of these categories have been found to have significant overstay and status violation rates in the past, and have been exploited by terrorists,” she said.
It’s a problem that needs fixing, she added.
“Clearly our overly generous visa issuance policies must be adjusted, and the sharp increase in visa issuances under the Obama administration must be reversed. Equally important, we need to finish the long-delayed biometric entry-exit system andstep up enforcement of immigration laws so that people do not have an incentive to overstay. Right now, President Obama has made it clear that he only wants to deport the most egregious criminal offenders, and everyone else gets a pass. This policy puts our country at risk – far more risk than we knew before – and stresses the communities where the illegal population settles,” she said.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
