Thousands of foreign students every year are over-staying their visa requirements to return home, robbing jobs from Americans and possibly posing a national security or espionage threat, according to officials.
Large numbers of students from China, India, Venezuela, and Haiti are refusing to leave, adding to the illegal immigration crisis in America and raising questions about why they came in the first place.
Recent Homeland Security data found that of the 565,000 foreign students slated to leave in fiscal 2023, some 50,000 stayed instead, violating their visa requirements.
Students from India and China topped the list of student and student worker overstays.
The new attention on visa “overstays” comes as the Trump administration is moving to slow or end the easy approval of student visas, especially at the president’s latest favorite target, Harvard University, where nearly 30% of students are foreigners.
Jessica Vaughan, the policy director for the Center for Immigration Studies, said that more than 500,000 foreigners overstay their visas every year and that students make up a good portion.
“Yes, the numbers from India and China are especially bad in the category of student visa holders and, for India, work visa holders. The number of Indian student visa overstays went up by 40% over the previous year,” said Vaughan.
“These individuals might pose a security threat, or an espionage threat. We don’t know — but they definitely pose a threat to the integrity of our immigration system, and to the job prospects of young Americans and legal immigrants,” she added.
Critics have long believed that some students sent from China and India, especially those who move into high-tech internships and temporary jobs, are involved in state-sponsored espionage and IT theft.
As the administration shines a light on foreign students, new concerns are showing up, especially the growth of student overstays from countries ignored during the Biden era.
Vaughan said that some countries have student overstay rates over 25%. “For example, the student visa overstay rate for citizens of Equatorial Guinea is over 70%,” she said.
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The number of overstays from Haiti was more than 27,000 in 2023, she added.
She recommended that the State Department “be reluctant” to issue any new student visas to countries where students refuse to return home.