Nonimmigrant Overstays: Brief Synthesis of the Issue

Publication Date: May 2006

Publisher: Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service

Author(s):

Research Area: Population and demographics

Type:

Abstract:

As the 109th Congress debates immigration control (i.e., border security and interior enforcement) and legal reform (i.e., temporary and permanent admissions), concerns arise over the capacity of the Department of Homeland Security to identify and remove temporary aliens who fail to depart when their visas expire. It is estimated that each year hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals overstay their nonimmigrant visas or enter the country illegally (with fraudulent documents or bypassing immigration inspections). The most recent published estimate based upon the March Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS) is that 11.1 million unauthorized aliens were residing in the United States in 2005. Reliable estimates of the number of nonimmigrant overstays are not available, and sample estimates range from 31% to 57% of the unauthorized population (depending on methodology). This report will be updated.