The share of people becoming undocumented immigrants in the United States not by illegally crossing a border, but by overstaying their visas was almost 40 percent of estimated new undocumented immigrants in the fiscal year 2023.
While an estimated 860,000 new undocumented arrivals were created due to illegal border crossings that year, more than 510,000 people overstayed their visa
This fact has in the past called into question the effectiveness of sealing off borders to curb illegal immigration. During the first Trump term, when the construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border took central stage, the number of overstayers even slightly outnumbered that of illegal crossers. Now, the Trump administration is also attacking on the other front, this weekend warning Indians not to overstay U.S. visas or risk lifetime bans to the country.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the absolute number of Indian visa overstayers in FY of 2023 was around 19,000 – rank 7 among nations, but the highest-ranking non-Latin American or Caribbean country. In FY 2016, this was still as high as 25,000 people.