Supersize the Entry Ban

Summary

• On June 4, President Trump issued an “entry ban” proclamation restricting, in whole or in part, travel to the United States for nationals of 19 countries. While Trump’s 2017 entry ban did not rely on visa overstay rates of countries’ nationals as a selection factor, overstay rates were a factor this time. President Trump concluded that “Nationals of some countries … pose significant risks of overstaying their visas … which increases burdens on immigration and law enforcement components of the United States, and often exacerbates other risks related to national security and public safety.”
• Upwards of 40 percent of the illegal alien population in the U.S. did not cross the border illegally, but rather came here legally on a temporary basis and then overstayed their visas. As the House Judiciary Committee once concluded, “Aliens who have abused our hospitality and overstayed their visas in order to work illegally are just as culpable as aliens who enter the U.S. illegally.” And the 9/11 Commission’s staff report on terrorist travel concluded that overstaying a visa was one of the “entry and embedding tactics” used by foreign terrorists in the United States.
• According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, nationals of 31 countries have higher estimated B visa overstay rates than do at least one of the countries subjected to the 2025 entry ban in part because of their nationals’ overstay rates, as do nationals of 67 countries with regard to F/M/J visa overstay rates. I would urge President Trump to consider further entry bans for nationals of these countries with even higher overstay rates (often extraordinarily high) than some of the countries sanctioned in his 2025 proclamation.

Introduction

On June 4, President Trump issued a proclamation, “Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats” (“2025 Proclamation”). My colleague Andrew Arthur has written that “[It] restrict[s] — in whole or in part — travel to the United States for nationals of 19 countries. Call it ‘Trump Travel Order 2.0’, building on similar efforts in his first administration that were derided — incorrectly — as a ‘Muslim Ban’.”

President Trump’s 2017 entry ban proclamation had not relied on visa overstay rates of countries’ nationals as a factor in selecting nations for the entry ban. However, overstay rates took center stage, or at least a stage, in the 2025 proclamation, in which President Trump stated that:

• As President, I must act to protect the national security and national interest of the United States and its people. … Nationals of some countries … pose significant risks of overstaying their visas in the United States, which increases burdens on immigration and law enforcement components of the United States, and often exacerbates other risks related to national security and public safety. [Emphasis added throughout.]

• [I]n determining what restrictions to impose for each country. … I considered foreign policy, national security, and counterterrorism goals. And I further considered various factors, including each country’s screening and vetting capabilities, information sharing policies, and country-specific risk factors — including whether each country has a significant terrorist presence within its territory, its visa-overstay rate, and its cooperation with accepting back its removable nationals.

Visa Overstays, Illegal Immigration, and Terrorism

Why are visa overstay rates so important from an immigration enforcement perspective? It is because visa overstays — aliens who enter the United States legally on temporary visas and don’t leave when they are required to — are a major contributor to the illegal alien population. The then-Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) concluded in 2002 that:

About 2.1 million, or 41 percent, of the total undocumented population in 1996 are nonimmigrant overstays. That is, they entered legally on a temporary basis and failed to depart. The proportion of the undocumented population who are overstays varies considerably by country of origin. About 16 percent of the Mexican undocumented population are nonimmigrant overstays, compared to 26 percent of those from Central America, and 91 percent from all other countries.

In 2005, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation (H.R. 4437) that would have made overstaying a visa a criminal offense, just as entering the U.S. illegally has been for nearly a century. The House Judiciary Committee explained in its report on the bill that:

Because overstaying a visa is not currently a criminal offense, in many cases an alien is no worse off for having remained in the United States past the expiration of an authorized stay than they would have been had they departed on time. On the contrary, in some cases aliens have sought relief based on factors that develop during the time they were out of status. In making overstaying a visa a Federal crime [as entering the United States illegally already is, H.R. 4437] will encourage aliens to depart at the end of their authorized stay. This penalty will increase respect for the immigration system by deterring aliens who remain in the United States out of the mistaken belief that their visa overstay is merely a technical violation. It will also ensure that illegal aliens do not labor under the impression that simply eluding authorities for long enough will provide relief from deportation based on acquired equities.

And, as the committee concluded in 2014, “Aliens who have abused our hospitality and overstayed their visas in order to work illegally are just as culpable as aliens who enter the U.S. illegally.”

The 9/11 Commission’s “9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” considered overstaying a visa to be one of the “entry and embedding tactics” used by terrorists prior to the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, my colleague Steven Camarota concluded in 2002 in “The Open Door: How Militant Islamic Terrorists Entered the United States, 1993-2001”, that:

At least 13 of the 47 terrorists in this study had overstayed a temporary visa at some point prior to taking part in terrorist activity … includ[ing Mir Aimal] Kansi [killer of two CIA employees in 1993], [Mahmud and Mohammed] Abouhalima [participants in the 1993 World Trade Center attack], [Eyad] Ismoil [1993 World Trade Center attack], [Mohammed ] Salameh [1993 World Trade Center attack], Amir and Fadil Abdelghani [participants in 1993 New York City landmarks bomb plot], [Lafi] Khalil [participant in 1997 New York subway bomb plot], and … 9/11 hijackers: [Zacarias] Moussaoui, [Satam] al Suqami, [Nawaf] al Hamzi … [Hani] Hanjour … [Mohammed] Atta and [Marwan] al Shehhi.

And House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte noted in 2013 that “terrorist overstays include Hosan Smadi, a Jordanian national who plotted to blow up a Dallas skyscraper in 2009, and Amine El Khalifi, a Moroccan whose visa expired in 1999 and who was arrested in an attempt to bomb the U.S. Capitol in 2012”.

Overstay Rates and President Trump’s 2025 Proclamation

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) indicated in its “Entry/Exit Overstay Report: Fiscal Year 2023 Report to Congress” (“2023 Overstay Report”) that the overstay rate in 2023 for aliens on B visas (for temporary visitors for business or pleasure) averaged 0.62 percent for nationals of countries in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP), 3.2 percent for nationals of non-VWP countries (other than Canada and Mexico), 0.73 percent for Canada, and 3.21 percent for Mexico. The overstay rate for aliens on F (student), J (exchange student, scholar, professor, and researcher), and M (vocational student) visas averaged 3.67 percent for nationals of all countries (other than Canada and Mexico), 0.73 for Canadians, and 4.37 percent for Mexicans.

What is an “overstay”? The “2023 “Overstay Report” explained that:

• An overstay is a nonimmigrant who was lawfully admitted to the United States for an authorized period but stayed in the United States beyond their authorized admission period. Nonimmigrants admitted for “duration of status,” who fail to maintain their status, may also be considered overstays. “Duration of status” is a term used for foreign nationals who are admitted for the duration of a specific program or activity, which may be variable, instead of for a set timeframe. The authorized admission period ends when the foreign national has accomplished the purpose for which they were admitted or is no longer engaged in authorized activities pertaining to that purpose. For example, a student who enters the United States for a program must leave when the program is completed, change to another immigration status, or go on to pursue another program of study.

• Pending immigration benefit applications and approved extensions of stay, change of nonimmigrant status, or adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident may extend or modify the authorized period of stay. For example, upon entering the United States a person may be granted a six-month period of admission, but thereafter lawfully change immigration status prior to the expiration of that period, and in turn be authorized to stay beyond the initial six months.

The “2023 Overstay Report” explained how overstay rates are calculated:

[The] term “Expected Departures” represents the entries by foreign travelers to the United States who were admitted as nonimmigrants at an air or sea port of entry and were expected to depart within FY 2023. … The “Overstay Rate” is the percentage of entries by travelers from each country who overstayed their authorized period of admission to the United States … the percentage of the Total Number of Overstays compared with the current fiscal year’s Expected Departures.

The report separated out Canada and Mexico because “[T]he majority of travelers from Canada and Mexico enter the United States by land. Figures pertaining to Canada and Mexico are presented separately from the other countries since air and sea information represents a smaller portion of the Canadian and Mexican travel population.”

Listed below are the countries the entry of whose nationals are fully or partially suspended by the “2025 Proclamation”, along with their 2023 overstay rates as utilized as a rationale for suspension (or not utilized, in instances where the “2025 Proclamation” did not rely on a country’s overstay rates as a rationale for the suspension of its nationals):

• Afghanistan (fully suspended): B visa overstay rate of 9.7 percent and F/M/J overstay rate of 29.3 percent.
• Burma (fully suspended): 27.1 percent (B); 42.2 percent (F/M/J)
• Burundi (partially suspended): 15.4 percent (B); 17.5 percent (F/M/J)
• Chad (fully suspended): 49.5 percent (B); 55.6 percent (F/M/J) (not mentioned as a rationale)
• Cuba (partially suspended): 7.7 percent (B); 18.8 percent (F/M/J)
• Republic of the Congo (fully suspended): 29.7 percent (B); 35.1 percent (F/M/J)
• Equatorial Guinea (fully suspended): 22.0 percent (B); 70.2 percent (F/M/J)
• Eritrea (fully suspended): 20.1 percent (B); 55.4 percent (F/M/J)
• Haiti (fully suspended): 31.4 percent (B); 25.1 percent (F/M/J)
• Iran (partially suspended): 5.0 percent (B); 4.5 percent (F/M/J) (Iran’s overstay rates not mentioned as a rationale for suspension.)
• Laos (partially suspended): 34.8 percent (B); 6.5 percent (F/M/J)
• Libya (fully suspended): 6.7 percent (B); 31.2 percent (F/M/J) (Libya’s overstay rates not mentioned as a rationale for suspension.)
• Sierra Leone (partially suspended): 15.4 percent (B); 35.8 percent (F/M/J)
• Somalia (fully suspended): 10.9 percent (B); 34.4 percent (F/M/J) (Somalia’s overstay rates not mentioned as a rationale for suspension.)
• Sudan (fully suspended): 26.3 percent (B); 28.4 percent (F/M/J)
• Togo (partially suspended): 19.0 percent (B); 35.1 percent (F/M/J)
• Turkmenistan (partially suspended): 15.4 percent (B); 21.7 percent (F/M/J)
• Venezuela (partially suspended): 9.8 percent (B); 2.7 percent (F/M/J) (Venezuela’s F/M/J overstay rate not mentioned as a rationale for suspension.)
• Yemen (fully suspended): 19.8 percent (B); 40.9 percent (F/M/J) (Yemen’s overstay rates not mentioned as a rationale for suspension.)

Unfinished Business

President Trump is absolutely right. Nationals of certain countries do pose significant risks of overstaying their visas, which increases law enforcement burdens and often exacerbates national security and public safety risks.

As President Trump relied in part on the overstay rates of countries’ nationals in determining whether to suspend their entry into the United States, I would urge that he consider further entry bans for nationals of countries with even higher estimated overstay rates (often extraordinarily high) in 2023 than those of nationals of some of the countries subject to entry bans under the “2025 Proclamation”.

According to the “2023 Overstay Report”:

• Nationals of the following 31 countries had a higher estimated B visa overstay rate in 2023 than the 7.7 percent rate of Cubans (and subjected to an entry ban in part because of this overstay rate):

  Djibouti (23.9 percent), Liberia (19.4 percent), Congo (Kinshasa) (15.1 percent), Mauritania (14.4 percent), Malawi (14.3 percent), Cabo Verde (12.8 percent), Bhutan (12.7 percent), Burkina Faso (12.1 percent), Benin (11.5 percent), Kyrgyzstan (11.1 percent), Zambia (11.1 percent), The Gambia (11.1 percent), Gabon (10.9 percent), Cameroon (10.7 percent), Zimbabwe (10.6 percent), Samoa (10.3 percent), Tanzania (10.2 percent), Georgia (10.0 percent), Syria (9.7 percent), Tonga (9.5 percent), Belarus (9.1 percent), Namibia (9.0 percent), Armenia (8.6 percent), Rwanda (8.6 percent), Central African Republic (8.6 percent), Uganda (8.4 percent), Guinea (8.2 percent), Tajikistan (8.1 percent), Kenya (7.9 percent), and Ethiopia (7.8 percent)

• Nationals of the following 67 countries had a higher estimated F/M/J visa overstay rate in 2023 than the 6.5 percent rate of Laotians (and subjected to an entry ban in part because of this overstay rate):

  Congo (Kinshasa) (50.1 percent), Djibouti (43.8 percent), Benin (33.5 percent), Micronesia (33.3 percent), The Gambia (33.0 percent), Tonga (29.4 percent), Niger (27.2 percent), Bhutan (26.7 percent), Cabo Verde (25.7 percent), Burkina Faso (25.4 percent), Kyrgyzstan (24.8 percent), Angola (24.7 percent), Liberia (24.5 percent), South Sudan (23.5 percent), Tanzania (22.3 percent), Ghana (21.0 percent), Cote D’Ivoire (20.5 percent), Cameroon (20.4 percent), Tuvalu (20.0 percent), Uzbekistan (19.9 percent), Ethiopia (19.8 percent), Malawi (19.7 percent), Gabon (19.5 percent), Zimbabwe (18.2 percent), Senegal (17.0 percent), Uganda (16.7 percent), the Philippines (16.1 percent), Zambia (16.0 percent), Nigeria (15.6 percent), Guinea (14.8 percent), Montenegro (14.1 percent), Guinea-Bissau (13.3 percent), Samoa (13.1 percent), Madagascar (12.8 percent), Syria (12.3 percent), Kenya (11.9 percent), Fiji (10.6 percent), Jamaica (10.5 percent), Namibia (10.3 percent), Nepal (10.2 percent), Papua New Guinea (10.1 percent), Jordan (10.0 percent), San Tome and Principe (10.0 percent), Bangladesh (9.8 percent), Ecuador (9.4 percent), Tunisia (9.4 percent), Suriname (9.2 percent), South Africa (8.9 percent), Botswana (8.6 percent), Dominica (8.5 percent), Central African Republic (8.3 percent), Columbia (8.3 percent), Armenia (8.2 percent), Grenada (8.1 percent), Lesotho (8.1 percent), Albania (8.1 percent), Iraq (8.1 percent), Cambodia (8.1 percent), Rwanda (8.0 percent), Mali (7.9 percent), Georgia (7.7 percent), Tajikistan (7.3 percent), Mongolia (7.2 percent), Vanuatu (7.1 percent), Algeria (6.9 percent), Dominican Republic (6.8 percent), and Macedonia (6.8 percent)