Illegal Immigration: INS Overstay Estimation Methods Need Improvement

The GAO recommendation in PEMD-95-20, originally made by the Program Evaluation and Methodology Division, and thereafter assigned to the Applied Research and Methods team (ARM) is being closed because the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) made new estimates of overstays by air in its "Entry/Exit Overstay Report: Fiscal Year 2015," which it submitted to the Congress on January 19, 2016. As the report states, DHS submitted the report "Pursuant to the requirement contained in Division F, Title I of P.L. 114-113, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, and 8 U.S.C. 1376, the Department of Homeland Security is submitting this report on overstay data. This report is submitted to provide data on departures and overstays, by country, for foreign visitors who were admitted to the United States though air and sea Ports of Entry (POEs), and who were expected to depart in FY 2015 (October 1, 2014-September 30, 2015)." Although this report was not submitted to GAO in response to GAO's recommendation in PEMD-95-20 that DHS should make new estimates of overstays by air, the fact that DHS submitted such a report to the Congress, as a practical matter, closes this recommendation.