Beyond President Joe Biden’s open-border failures, the nation’s immigration system is broken in many ways.
One of the most obvious but overlooked concerns is visa overstays. These are cases where foreign nationals and visitors legally enter the United States on a tourist, student, or temporary work visa but never leave.
It’s one of the many ways migrants and foreign visitors ignore U.S. immigration law, staying beyond their legal right to remain in the United States without any repercussions.
The Trump administration has taken a multi-pronged approach to immigration enforcement, resulting in more than a doubling of the number of nonimmigrant visa revocations this year.
The U.S. Department of State has revoked around 80,000 non-immigrant visas since President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20, a senior State Department official said on Wednesday.
The extent of the revocations, first reported by the Washington Examiner, has targeted student visa holders as well as people with criminal records and terrorist ties. The offenses range from driving under the influence to assault, theft, and other crimes.
Tommy Pigott, the department’s principal deputy spokesman, told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that the Trump administration “will not hesitate to revoke visas from foreigners who undermine our laws or threaten our national security.”
The more concerning issue is the people who fly under the radar—until they don’t. Several recent cases of dangerous foreign nationals committing violent crimes after their visas expire have made headlines.
In June, an Egyptian man who came into the country on a tourist visa turned into a flamethrowing radical, targeting Israeli hostage sympathizers in Boulder, Colo.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, pleaded not guilty to 184 state charges during his arraignment in state court Wednesday, ABC News reported.
Soliman attacked pro-Israeli protesters with Molotov cocktails and yelled “Free Palestine” at a popular pedestrian mall. He injured more than a dozen people, and one passed away from her injuries.
Soliman entered the country in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023. Soliman filed for asylum in September 2022 and was granted a work authorization in March 2023, but that also expired, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security
In a report by The Associated Press from June, the AP highlighted the problem in the lede, stating Soliman is “among hundreds of thousands of people known to overstay their visas each year in the United States.”
There were 565,155 visa overstays from October 2022 through September 2023 among visitors who arrived by plane or ship — more than the population of the metro areas of Reno, Nevada, or Chattanooga, Tenn., according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s most recent annual report.
Visa overstays continue to be “the Trojan horse hiding in plain sight,” according to Sara Gonzales of Blaze TV, adding “the stories of these dangerous migrants continue to pile up.”
Gonzales’ take on the Soliman case: “He came in and he overstayed until he decided to just be a total nutjob criminal.”
In 2021, Khaled Awad, 24, another Egyptian man in the U.S. on a student visa, stabbed a Jewish rabbi eight times outside a Jewish day school in Boston. The rabbi survived his wounds, and the attack has been labeled as a hate crime.
Another disturbing case out of Florida involves a 24-year-old woman from Kentucky who was savagely beaten, raped and left for dead during a Spring Break trip to Miami in April 2024. The suspect, Junior Joseph, 28, was an illegal Haitian with a long criminal record.
He roamed free for months until DNA linked him to the crime and he was charged in the assault. Joseph reportedly entered the U.S. on a visa that had expired, records show, and he was deported by the Trump administration before heading to trial.
In late October, a master’s student from India turned violent on a plane, allegedly stabbing two teens with a fork and slapping a passenger on a Chicago flight to Germany.
Praneeth Kumar Usiripalli, 28, was arrested upon landing and charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to do bodily harm, according to various reports.
“But the guy came to the United States legally on a student visa, and then he overstayed,” Gonzales said. “… It’s legal at first, until it’s not, and then he becomes a dangerous criminal and dangerous to our country. This isn’t the first example of similar attacks.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio isn’t apologizing for tightening the visa system or holding visa holders to stricter standards. The State Department also has cracked down on foreign students and others who come to the United States as guests and break the law or cause disruptions such as pro-Palestinian activists on colleges campuses.
“Our message is clear: Entry to America is a privilege, not a right, and we will always put the safety and interests of the American people first,” Pigott added.
The U.S. is no longer tolerating foreign nationals who publicly express support for Hamas, hostility toward the United States, or other sentiments opposed to American interests.
Last month, the department published a series of case studies on foreign nationals who had their visas revoked after celebrating the death of activist Charlie Kirk following his assassination in September.
“The United States has no obligation to host foreigners who wish death on Americans,” a statement from the department said. “Aliens who take advantage of America’s hospitality while celebrating the assassination of our citizens will be removed.”
Of the 80,000 visas revoked, approximately 8,000 were student visas and 16,000 visas have been pulled over incidents of driving under the influence, the Washington Examiner reported. Roughly 12,000 have been revoked for assaults, and another 8,000 for theft.
“These three crimes accounted for almost half of revocations this year,” a senior State Department official told the Washington Examiner.
Newsweek reported in August that the State Department is conducting “continuous vetting” on the more than 55 million foreigners who currently hold valid U.S. visas.
That figure sparked the usual Trump administration backlash, with Newsweek reporting “the real figure is far lower.” The 55 million includes all those with visas, such as for work or study, many of whom are not currently in the U.S., according to figures from the Department of Homeland Security.
The total number of U.S visa holders can also include tourists from many countries.
Newsweek also reported that there were only 3.6 million people in the U.S. on non-immigrant visas issued in association with residency, primarily for work or study, per statistics from fiscal year 2024 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
According to the State Department’s most recent annual report, a total of 10.4 million non-immigrant visas were issued in fiscal year 2023, including 5.9 million tourist visas.
