Foreigners who overstay visas outnumber those who cross border illegally

MIAMI — Among an increasing number of immigration cases emerging in Miami federal court records, the ones that stand out are those that deal with foreign travelers accused of making false statements in their visa applications in efforts to hide previous visits when they exceeded the time authorized for them to remain in the country.

At least five new cases of visa overstays appeared in court dockets in the last few weeks, coinciding with the publication of a new report that says foreign nationals who remain more time in the country than their visas authorize now outnumber among undocumented immigrants those who cross the border illegally.

The report from the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) in New York says that since 2007 a majority of undocumented immigrants in the United States are the result of visa overstays, not illegal border crossers.

“The paper finds that twothirds of those who arrived in 2014 were admitted (after screening) to the United States on non-immigrant (temporary) visas, and then overstayed their period of admission or otherwise violated the terms of their visas — a trend likely to continue,” according to a CMS statement.

The most recent case in Miami court records starkly illustrates the issue.

It began on Jan. 28 when Uruguayan traveler Maria de los Angeles Moreira Garcia arrived at the Miami International Airport on an American Airlines flight from Montevideo.

“The defendant presented a Uruguayan passport and a U.S. visa to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for an examination and entry into the United States,” the criminal complaint says. “The defendant was referred to secondary inspection for admissibility verification.”

During an interrogation, CBP officials discovered that although Moreira Garcia’s passport and visa were genuine, the visa had been obtained fraudulently, according to the complaint.