Overstaying A Visa

Sometimes I think the United States will sink due to the weight of the millions of people who enter the country legally and illegally. In 2013, approximately 41.3 million immigrants lived in the United States, an all time high for a nation historically built on immigration. The United States remains a popular destination attracting about 20 percent of the world's international migrants. approximately 80 million people, or one quarter of the overall U.S. population, is either of the first or second generation.

Just how many illegal immigrants are here is unknown. For many years the same 12 million figure is most often cited. Some say the actual total is closer to 40 million illegal immigrants.  Problem is, there is no way to know the actual total for am country like this that winks and nods approval for anyone who is illegally here. But we do know the number of legal immigrants and the number of visas issued to foreigners. In 2013, the U.S. issued 9,164,349 nonimmigrant visas. And nearly half a million foreigners who legally entered the U.S. on some kind of temporary visa remained here after their visas expired last year (according to government statistics). This is a problem.

It's obvious those who wish to come here illegally know they will not be deported aside from committing a felony and being convicted of it. We pretend to have immigration laws and the illegals agree and come and go as they wish. No nation in modern times has ever had such open borders as the U.S. This means that not only good newcomers arrive, also plenty of undesirables- criminals, illiterate and unskilled, those desiring to live off welfare programs in the U.S., people carrying contagious diseases or those desiring to create terror in the U.S. and on and on. Western Europe is now seeing it's first major invasion of illegals and it is already creating havoc in the those countries.

When foreigners apply for a visa to enter the country, they are interviewed, photographed and have their fingerprints taken before they even reach the U.S. All that work is done at foreign consulates, and gives U.S. officials a full portrait of people entering the country. But the difficulty in tracking what happens to those foreigners comes when they leave. U.S Customs and Border Protection doesn't have the ability of getting biometric information such as fingerprints or iris scans from every foreigner leaving the U.S. That makes it difficult to figure out who's left and who has remained. Part of the problem is the way U.S. airports are laid out. Unlike many foreign airports that have separate areas for domestic and international flights, all departing flights from U.S. airports use the same terminals. That makes it difficult for Customs officers to pick out foreign travelers and collect their information.

What this means is that the United States has not only a problem with people sneaking into the country across an unsecured border (mainly Mexico) but also with people who have legal permission to enter temporarily but use that to overstay their visa and camp her permanently. Essentially, The United States is a nation with no immigration control. I wonder if it can survive as a leading nation if that policy continues