Students are top visa overstayers

 
A new report examining abuses in the visa programs shows that of all the various types of visas, the F, M, and J visas include the largest proportion of persons overstaying the time limits for their presence in the U.S.
 
The “F” visa is for academic students, “M” is for vocational students, and the “J” visa is for educational and cultural exchange programs.
 
Here are excerpts from the blog by David North, a longtime specialist in immigration matters.
 
By David North, Center for Immigration Studies, May 25, 2017 
 
Foreign students are more than twice as likely to overstay their visas as nonimmigrants coming to the United States generally.
 
That's an obvious but unremarked take-away from the "Fiscal Year 2016 Entry/Exit Overstay Report" just issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. 
 
Using a statistical ratio based on the report, one out of 36 entrants with F, J, or M visas do not go home when their visas expire.
 
The overall ratio, for all nonimmigrant entries studied by DHS, is one out of 80 overstaying. The least troublesome of the subpopulations examined were those (from prosperous countries) on the Visa Waiver Program — only one out of 166 of them overstayed.
Nonimmigrants entering through the land ports of entry from Mexico and Canada are not covered by the study. The (relatively small) groups of Canadians and Mexicans mentioned above arrived following the receipt of a visa. Most people coming from those two countries do not have a visa. …
 
So how can we improve on the 1/36 ratio for foreign students? Well, different student populations have different characteristics, some of which are picked up in this study, and some are not. What this study shows is that some countries are much more likely to contribute overstays than others, with the world champion being Eritrea where the ratio is about one overstay for every 1.3 entrants. Put another way, 75 percent of those admitted as students from Eritrea are overstays.
 
Other nations with high ratios — all more than 10 times the global average — are Burkina Faso (1/2.2), Chad (1/2.7), the Democratic Republic of Congo (1/2.7), Djibouti (1/3.0), Libya (1/3.1), Benin (1/3.2), Gambia (1/3.4), and Cameroon (1/3.5). …
 
Then there is a group of 23 nations, one from Europe, several from Asia, but most from Africa, that have overstay ratios from five to 10 times the global average. Among those in this category are Bhutan, Haiti, Iraq, and Moldova. The ratios, in this list, range from 1 out of 3.7 down to 1 out of 35.9. 
…It is clear that some educational vultures have set up a small number of "colleges" that are really visa mills, designed to provide little if any education, but many opportunities to work legally in the United States before and after graduation. Sadly, neither the executive branch nor the Congress has taken the obvious step of deciding that if an educational institution cannot be accredited by a reviewing body currently recognized by the U.S. Department of Education, it should not be allowed to cause the admission of foreign students.
 
Given the lack of a direct requirement banning such entities from business, the government, through the ultra-sleepy Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) part of ICE, which is part of DHS, is charged with closing the very worst of the visa mills. Once in a while it does so, but only after many overstays have been created and large profits have been reaped by the operators. … 
 
Proposed Actions. Given this background, we suggest that the Department of State … create different review standards for students from different groups of foreign students, by nation of origin, paying more attention to those from nations with high overstay rates …
 
More specifically, for the worst of the overstay-producers, those that have 10 or more times the overstay rates of the average, we suggest that the State Department simply terminate the granting of all visas to students from those countries until further notice. …
 
For … those producing five to 10 times the overstay rates, we suggest suspending student visas until the overstay rates fall below a ratio of five times the global average. …
 
For …overstay ratios at least twice the global average, more careful vetting should take place; in addition, perhaps a bond could be demanded (a cash bond, not some kind of financial document) of say $10,000 from the family. …
 
Further, in all nations of origin, consular officials should be told to pay special attention to students who have been accepted by U.S. educational institutions that lack accreditation from an agency currently recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. …
 
Meanwhile, Congress should mandate the accreditation policy suggested above, and while waiting for that to happen, the Department of Homeland Security should focus its SEVP resources — it has a staff of 700, most of whom never visit a college — on the most egregious of the higher education entities at the bottom of the scale.