Millions of Overstays Part of the Enforcement Problem

"Millions of illegal immigrants in the United States never jumped the U.S.-Mexico border where Congress wants to erect impenetrable walls and President Bush is sending National Guard troops to patrol. They never sneaked in at all. The little-acknowledged reality is that nearly half the estimated 12 million undocumented foreigners in the United States entered on bona fide U.S. visas _ and simply never left," the AP writes. "Confirming those findings or knowing the home country of those who overstay their visas is tricky because U.S. authorities don't track the problem. Immigration authorities also generally don't compare entry and exit information to see who should have left the country." [FAIR comment: almost 5 years after 9/11 the U.S. is still not doing entry/exit tracking - and several of the 9/11 hijackers were able to move freely in and out of the U.S. despite overstaying their visas.]

Read the full story