Over 7,000 of those scholar and change guests that overstayed their visas got here from India, home representatives heard in a committee listening to on immigration enforcement within the US on January 22.
“Thirty-two nations have scholar/change customer overstay charges of upper than 20%,” Jessica Vaughan, director of coverage research on the anti-immigration think-tank, the Middle for Immigration Research, instructed the committee.
Nevertheless, sector leaders have argued that Vaughan’s testimony contained “some critical and inaccurate generalisations” and relied on “defective statistics for her declare concerning the scholar visa overstay fee,” in response to NAFSA‘s director of immigration coverage, Heather Stewart.
“Worldwide college students are essentially the most tracked non-immigrants within the US and a transparent and complete understanding of scholar visa misuse is required if the sector is to reach at efficient and acceptable options,” mentioned Stewart.
After India, Vaughan highlighted China, Colombia and Brazil as every having greater than 2,000 of their residents overstay scholar/change visas in 2023, urging Congress to get rid of OPT and impose penalties for institutional sponsors, amongst a bunch of rules.
“The F and M visa classes have [the] highest overstay charges of any of the broad classes of non permanent admission,” Vaughan instructed committee members, with F visas used for tutorial research and M visas for vocational research.
Based on latest DHS figures, the full overstay fee for scholar and change guests in 2023 was 3.67% with a suspected in-country overstay fee of two.86%, dropping barely to 2.69% solely for F-1 college students, with all metrics excluding Mexico and Canada.
Nations with highest scholar/change overstay charges by numbers (2023):
| Nation | Suspected in-country overstays | Whole overstays | Whole overstay fee |
| India | 5,818 | 7,081 | 4.67% |
| China | 3,012 | 5,255 | 2.1% |
| Colombia | 2,792 | 3,223 | 8.29% |
| Brazil | 1,692 | 2,198 | 4.6% |
Whereas India, China, Colombia and Brazil recorded the biggest numbers of scholar overstays in 2023, their overstay fee as a proportion of general scholar populations within the US had been comparatively low.
It’s maybe unsurprising that India and China, whose mixed scholar populations made up 54% of complete worldwide enrolments at US establishments in 2023/24, additionally noticed the best ranges of visa overstays.
| Nation | Whole overstay fee |
| Equatorial Guinea | 70.18% |
| Chad | 55.64% |
| Eritrea | 55.43% |
| Congo (Kinshasa) | 50.06% |
| Djibouti | 43.75% |
| Burma | 42.17% |
| Yemen | 40.92% |
| Sierra Leone | 35.83% |
| Congo (Brazzaville) | 35.14% |
| Togo | 35.05% |
| World (excl. Mexico + Canada) | 3.67% |
Notably, the ‘in-country overstay fee’ refers back to the proportion of people suspected to nonetheless be bodily current within the US after their visa expired, whereas the ‘complete overstay fee’ contains each these nonetheless within the nation and people who could have finally left after overstaying their visa, however weren’t recorded as departing.
Sector members have raised considerations concerning the “troubling” scale of the issue uncovered by the report, starting from benign violations of legit college students to “instances of wilful fraud”, mentioned Eddie West and Anna Esaki-Smith, two main US educators.
NAFSA, nevertheless, has disputed the figures as “unreliable”, claiming that the report “overstates” the problem and urged stakeholders to take warning when taking the figures out of context.
Certainly, DHS concedes that “infrastructural, operational and logistical challenges” within the exit atmosphere make it troublesome to establish college students who don’t depart by way of air or who transition from F-1 standing to H-1B, authorized everlasting residency and different statuses.
What’s extra, DHS information revealed a 42% decline within the suspected overstay fee for scholar and change guests throughout a 15-month interval ending in January 2024, indicating a lag time for the system to register college students’ altering conditions.
“Not solely do visa issuance insurance policies should be adjusted and inside enforcement boosted, as well as Congress ought to amend the regulation in a number of necessary methods,” Vaughan instructed the listening to.
In a press release elevating some concern about Vaughan’s testimony, she advisable that “the idea of twin intent mustn’t apply to scholar visa candidates”.
Underneath present regulation, it doesn’t.
Whereas the Non-obligatory Sensible Coaching (OPT) program has been extensively confirmed to profit American staff in addition to worldwide graduates, Vaughan blamed the initiative for spawning “an trade of diploma mills and faux faculties”, calling for it to be eradicated or “a lot, rather more intently regulated”.
Vaughan additionally advisable stricter rules on H1-B specialty occupation visas, a transfer which Stewart warned would “instantly” make the US look much less engaging to worldwide college students who “strongly think about” post-study employment alternatives when deciding the place to review overseas.
Throughout Donald Trump’s presidential marketing campaign, he stunned a few of the sector.
The second-time US president spoke out in help of the H1-B visa throughout his presidential marketing campaign amid a row concerning the work pathway amongst distinguished Republicans.
The US is the one one out of the ‘Huge 4’ research locations – US, UK, Australia and Canada – to publish information on worldwide scholar overstay charges.