Visa overstays in US persist without much scrutiny
The suspect in the Boulder attack, entered the US legally on a tourist visa in 2022 and overstayed. He applied for asylum and received a work permit that later expired. Visa overstays represent a significant portion of the undocumented population, with estimates suggesting over 40% arrived legally by air and remained unlawfully, posing tracking challenges.
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The suspect in the Boulder, Colorado, attack highlights a type of immigrant who has been largely absent from the heated political messaging on immigration: a person who arrives in the United States legally, on a tourist or other temporary visa , and remains after their permission to stay has lapsed.Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national accused of carrying out the attack in Colorado, entered on a tourist visa in August 2022 that would have allowed him to remain in the country for six months once he presented his passport to a US Customs and Border Protection official at an airport on arrival. Only later did he apply for asylum.Federal officials shared more information on Soliman's immigration status Monday. Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security , said he had been granted a work permit in March 2023 after he applied for asylum with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, an agency within the department. But that permit had expired, she said, even as Soliman had not received a final decision on his application.In fiscal year 2023, the government estimated there were about 400,000 such overstays, according to an official report issued by the Department of Homeland Security. That year, about 2,400 Egyptians in the United States had overstayed their visas, or about 4% of all arrivals from that country, the report said.But overall, the numbers are significant, even if President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress tend to talk up migrants who cross the southwestern border to enter the United States or present themselves to border agents and request asylum.More than 40% of the immigrants without permanent legal status flew into the country with a visa, passed inspection at the airport and then stayed unlawfully, according to estimates by the Center for Migration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank."Scholars have long recognized that visa overstays constitute a significant share of the undocumented population," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration scholar at Cornell Law School."This segment has not received nearly as much attention as people entering illegally across the U.S.-Mexico border because they are simply not as visible," he said.Identifying and tracking so-called visa overstays is extremely difficult, and they have not historically been a priority for enforcement.Visas issued to a wide range of foreigners, from camp counselors to tourists and business travelers, can result in overstays. Students who enter the United States for a summer program should leave when that program ends, change to another immigration status, or pursue another program of study to maintain their lawful presence.But in the past if they stayed beyond the time permitted, they would most likely not be detained unless they had committed a crime or were in police custody.
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