Homeland Security produces first estimate of foreign visitors to U.S. who overstay deadline to leave

*It’s no secret that many of the unauthorized residents in the U.S. overstay their visas. This is the first official count of the overstayers, there are 482,781 in total – 93 thousand are from Canada, 42 thousand from Mexico. VL

By Jeffrey S. Passel and D’Vera Cohn, Pew Research Center

Under pressure from Congress to improve tracking of foreign visitors, the Department of Homeland Security has produced its first partial estimate of those who overstay their permits to be in the U.S. Out of 45 million U.S. arrivals by air and sea whose tourist or business visas expired in fiscal 2015, the agency estimates that about 416,500 people were still in the country this year.

The government’s report was limited in scope and includes no reliable trend data that could shed light on whether overstays are growing or declining.

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