Speed immigration records checks, find visa overstayers: US to USCIS, ICE

Business Standard

a day ago

The United States has launched a sweeping review of visa overstays following the arrest of an Egyptian national accused of setting Americans on fire in Colorado.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Wednesday ordered immigration authorities to speed up checks on all temporary visa holders, after it emerged that 45-year-old Mohammed Soliman had remained in the US illegally since 2022.
Soliman was arrested in Boulder, Colorado, after a firebomb attack that left 12 people injured. Prosecutors have charged him with a federal hate crime, alongside multiple state-level felonies.
'This was a shocking terrorist attack,' said Noem. 'Anyone who thinks they can come to America and advocate for antisemitic violence and terrorism – think again. You are not welcome here.
'We will find you, deport you, and prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law.'
Noem said the US would move fast to identify and remove visa overstayers, blaming what she called the Biden administration's weak enforcement.
A statement from US Citizenship and Immigration Services said: 'At the direction of Secretary Kristi Noem, US Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and USCIS are ramping up the review of immigration records and will take immediate appropriate actions to crack down on visa overstays stemming from the Biden Administration's failure to enforce the law.'
Soliman, who had entered the country on a B-2 visa intended for tourism or family visits, later applied for asylum with his wife and five children. He was granted work authorisation while the case remained pending in immigration court.
The Biden-era rule allowed hundreds of thousands of people like Soliman to live and work legally while awaiting their asylum decisions.
Trump calls for tighter vetting
US President Donald Trump pointed to the Boulder attack to justify a new travel ban affecting 12 countries, including nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Egypt was not among them.
Trump also imposed a partial ban on travelers from seven countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
'The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted, as well as those who come here as temporary visitors and overstay their visas,' Trump said in a video message on Wednesday. 'We don't want them.'
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called the US immigration system 'suicidal' and confirmed that Soliman's wife and five children had been taken into immigration custody. They will be deported.
However, months before the Colorado attack, Trump had already instructed US consulates to scrutinise visa applicants' social media posts and deny visas to those with anti-Semitic or 'anti-American' views.
565,000 visa overstays recorded in 2023
According to a 2023 Department of Homeland Security report published in 2024, 565,000 temporary visa holders overstayed their visas that year. About 55,000 eventually left before the fiscal year ended, but the remainder are believed to have stayed on illegally.
The overstay rate among student and exchange visa holders was close to 4 per cent. Some nationalities had far higher rates, with 70 per cent of students from Equatorial Guinea, 54 per cent from Eritrea, and 40 per cent from Burma failing to leave on time.
For Indian nationals, more than 7,000 on F, M, or J student and exchange visas overstayed in 2023, pushing the overstay rate to 3.8 per cent—more than double the 1.6 per cent recorded in 2020.
In the case of business and tourist travellers from India (on B1/B2 visas), US records show:
1,000,020 departures were expected in 2023
12,882 people overstayed
The total overstay rate was 1.29 per cent
1.08 per cent are believed to have remained in-country without a recorded departure
The US Department of Homeland Security said it would now increase monitoring of all visa holders whose permitted stay has ended.
Meanwhile, MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal last Friday said that they had close cooperation between India and the United States on migration issues, on the deportation of Indian nationals who are either in illegal status there or who travel illegally.
"We take them back once we receive details about them,' he said in the weekly press briefing.
He added, 'The update on the numbers is that since January 2025, around 1,080 Indians have returned or been deported from the United States. Of these, about 62 per cent have come on commercial flights.'