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United States Government Accountability Office: 
GAO: 

Report to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, 
U.S. Senate: 

April 2011: 

Overstay Enforcement: 

Additional Mechanisms for Collecting, Assessing, and Sharing Data 
Could Strengthen DHS's Efforts but Would Have Costs: 

GAO-11-411: 

GAO Highlights: 

Highlights of GAO-11-411, a report to the Committee on Homeland 
Security and Governmental Affairs, U.S. Senate. 

Why GAO Did This Study: 

According to Pew Hispanic Center estimates, approximately 4 million to 
5.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States entered the 
country legally on a temporary basis but then overstayed their 
authorized periods of admission—referred to as overstays. As 
requested, GAO examined the extent to which the Department of Homeland 
Security (DHS) (1) takes action to address overstays and its reported 
results; and (2) identifies overstays and shares this information 
among its border security and immigration enforcement components. GAO 
reviewed relevant documents, such as standard operating procedures, 
DHS guidance, and overstay investigations data from fiscal years 2006 
through 2010; interviewed officials from DHS components; and visited 6 
DHS field offices and 12 ports of entry based on geographic 
dispersion, among other factors. The results of these visits are not 
generalizable, but provided insights into DHS operations. 

What GAO Found: 

DHS takes actions to address a small portion of the estimated overstay 
population due to, among other things, competing priorities; however, 
these efforts could be enhanced by improved planning and performance 
management. Since fiscal year 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement (ICE), the principle DHS component responsible for 
overstay enforcement, has allocated about 3 percent of its 
investigative work hours to overstay investigations and its 
Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), which 
prioritizes and investigates possible overstays, has arrested 
approximately 8,100 overstays. ICE is considering assigning some 
responsibility for noncriminal overstay enforcement to its Enforcement 
and Removal Operations (ERO) directorate, which has responsibility for 
apprehending and removing illegal aliens from the United States. 
However, ERO does not plan to assume this responsibility until ICE 
assesses the funding and resources doing so would require. ICE has not 
established a time frame for completing this assessment. By developing 
such a time frame and utilizing the assessment findings, as 
appropriate, ICE could strengthen its planning efforts and be better 
positioned to hold staff accountable for completing the assessment. In 
addition, CTCEU does not have mechanisms to assess program performance 
in accordance with leading performance management practices. By 
establishing such mechanisms, CTCEU could better ensure that managers 
have information to assist in making decisions for strengthening 
overstay enforcement efforts and assessing performance against CTCEU’s 
goals. 

In the absence of a biometric entry and exit system, DHS uses various 
methods for identifying overstays, primarily biographic data, and 
sharing of overstay information; however, DHS faces challenges in 
collecting departure data and does not share information about all 
categories of suspected overstays among its components. For example, 
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the DHS component charged 
with inspecting all people who enter the United States, does not 
provide a standard mechanism for nonimmigrants departing the United 
States through land ports of entry to remit their arrival and 
departure forms. These forms contain information, such as arrival and 
departure dates, used by DHS to identify overstays. CBP officials 
stated that establishing such a mechanism could help the agency 
increase its collection of departure data, but could also result in 
costs related to, for example, physical modifications to land ports of 
entry. If the benefits outweigh the costs, such a mechanism could help 
DHS obtain more complete and reliable departure data for identifying 
overstays. DHS also shares overstay information among its components 
through various mechanisms. For example, DHS creates electronic alerts 
for certain categories of overstays, such as those who overstay by 
more than 90 days, but does not create alerts for those who overstay 
by less than 90 days to focus efforts on more egregious overstay 
violators, as identified by CBP. Expanding the categories of overstays 
assigned an alert to the extent that benefits outweigh costs could 
improve the chance that these individuals are identified as overstays 
during subsequent encounters with federal officials, such as when they 
apply for readmission to the United States. 

What GAO Recommends: 

GAO recommends, among other things, that DHS establish a time frame 
for completing overstay enforcement planning, performance measurement 
mechanisms, and, if benefits outweigh costs, a mechanism for 
collecting departure forms at land borders and alerts for additional 
categories of overstays. DHS concurred with our recommendations. 

View [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-411] or key 
components. For more information, contact Richard Stana at (202) 512-
8777 or stanar@gao.gov. 

[End of section] 

Contents: 

Letter: 

Background: 

Federal Agencies Take Actions against a Small Portion of the Estimated 
Overstay Population, but Strengthening Prioritization and Assessment 
of Overstay Efforts Could Improve Enforcement: 

More Reliable, Accessible Data Could Improve DHS's Efforts to Identify 
and Share Information on Overstays: 

Conclusions: 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

Appendix II: Department of Homeland Security Identification of 
Overstays: 

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

Tables: 

Table 1: Overstay Categories and Legal Consequences for Nonimmigrants 
Overstaying Their Authorized Periods of Admissions: 

Table 2: Roles and Responsibilities of Federal Agencies for Addressing 
Overstays: 

Table 3: Key Federal Databases Used for Identifying Overstays: 

Table 4: Primary DHS Information Sharing Activities that Contribute to 
Federal Overstay Enforcement Actions: 

Table 5: Number of Records Processed and Identified as Potential 
Overstays from Fiscal Years 2005-2010: 

Table 6: CTCEU Processing of In-Country Overstay Leads from Fiscal 
Years 2004-2010: 

Figures: 

Figure 1: Process for Nonimmigrant Entry to and Exit from the United 
States: 

Figure 2: Percentage of Closed CTCEU In-Country Overstay 
Investigations Resulting in Arrest (as of Oct. 2010): 

Figure 3: Fiscal Years 2004-2010 Outcomes of CTCEU Overstay Cases Not 
Resulting in Arrest: 

Figure 4: ICE Reported Percentage of Field Office Investigative Hours 
Dedicated to Overstay Cases: 

Figure 5: US-VISIT Review Process for Identifying In-Country Overstay 
Leads: 

Figure 6: CTCEU Processing of Overstay Leads from Fiscal Years 2004- 
2010: 

Figure 7: State Department Visa Refusals and CBP Admission Refusals on 
Records with US-VISIT Overstay Lookouts from Fiscal Years 2006-2010: 

Figure 8: US-VISIT Process for Identifying Out-of-Country Overstays: 

Abbreviations: 

CBP: U.S. Customs and Border Protection: 

CTCEU: Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit: 

DHS: Department of Homeland Security: 

ERO: Enforcement and Removal Operations: 

ICE: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: 

POE: port of entry: 

USCIS: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services: 

US-VISIT: U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology: 

VWP: Visa Waiver Program: 

[End of section] 

United States Government Accountability Office: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

April 15, 2011: 

The Honorable Joseph Lieberman: 
Chairman: 
The Honorable Susan Collins: 
Ranking Member: 
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: 
United States Senate: 

The most recent estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center approximated 
that, in 2006, out of an unauthorized resident alien population of 
11.5 million to 12 million in the United States, about 4 million to 
5.5 million were overstays.[Footnote 1] These are individuals who were 
admitted to the country legally on a temporary basis--either with a 
visa, or in some cases, as a visitor who was allowed to enter without 
a visa--but then overstayed their authorized periods of admission. 
[Footnote 2] The overstay population is comprised of individuals from 
various global regions, including Europe, South America, Asia, and the 
Middle East. In February 2008, we reported that most overstays are 
likely motivated by economic opportunities to stay in the United 
States beyond their authorized periods of admission.[Footnote 3] 
Individuals overstaying their authorized periods of admission could 
pose homeland security concerns. For example, in some instances 
overstays have been identified as terrorists or involved in terrorist-
related activity, such as 5 of the 19 September 11, 2001, hijackers. 
[Footnote 4] In addition, according to Department of Homeland Security 
(DHS) data, of approximately 400 individuals reported by the 
Department of Justice as convicted in the United States as a result of 
international terrorism-related investigations conducted from 
September 2001 through March 2010, approximately 36 were overstays. 
[Footnote 5] 

DHS has primary responsibility for identifying and taking enforcement 
action to address overstays, and several of its components and 
programs contribute to these efforts. U.S. Customs and Border 
Protection (CBP) is tasked with, among other duties, inspecting all 
people applying for entry to the United States to determine their 
admissibility to the country and screening Visa Waiver Program (VWP) 
applicants to determine their eligibility to travel to the United 
States under the program. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
(ICE) is the lead agency for enforcing immigration law in the interior 
of the United States and is primarily responsible for overstay 
enforcement. The United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator 
Technology Program (US-VISIT) within DHS's National Protection and 
Programs Directorate supports the identification of nonimmigrant 
overstays. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is 
responsible for adjudicating applications and petitions for 
immigration and citizenship benefits and the Office of Policy 
Development is responsible for policy and oversight of the VWP. In 
addition, the Department of State is responsible for issuing visas to 
foreign nationals seeking admission to the United States. 

In light of the potential homeland security risk posed by overstays, 
you asked us to review DHS efforts to identify, address, and share 
information on overstays. This report addresses the following 
questions: 

* To what extent do federal agencies take action against overstays, 
and what have been the reported results? 

* To what extent does DHS identify and share information on overstays 
among its components and with federal, state, and local agencies? 

To determine the extent to which federal agencies take action against 
overstays, we analyzed ICE documentation, such as policy manuals, 
regarding its processes for identifying and investigating possible 
overstays located within the United States. We obtained and analyzed 
data from ICE on the investigations of its Counterterrorism and 
Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), which is primarily responsible for 
overstay investigations, from fiscal years 2004 through 2010 and ICE's 
overstay investigative work hours from fiscal years 2006 through 2010 
to determine the extent to which ICE has dedicated investigative 
resources to overstay investigations.[Footnote 6] To assess the 
reliability of these data, we reviewed documentation on ICE's data 
system internal controls and interviewed knowledgeable agency 
officials about the source of the data and the quality assurance steps 
performed to help ensure data reliability. We determined that the data 
were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our report. To evaluate 
ICE's overstay enforcement efforts, we assessed the extent to which 
CTCEU's program practices adhered to standard practices for program 
management and internal control standards.[Footnote 7] Furthermore, we 
interviewed ICE officials from CTCEU and Enforcement and Removal 
Operations (ERO) headquarters, and conducted site visits to 6 of ICE's 
26 Special Agent in Charge field office locations--Seattle, Wash.; Los 
Angeles and San Diego, Calif.; Miami, Fla.; New York, N.Y.; and 
Newark, N.J. We selected these locations based on a mix of criteria, 
including the number of completed overstays investigations, geographic 
location, and locations near CBP ports of entry (POE).[Footnote 8] 
Although the results from our interviews with officials at these 
locations cannot be generalized to officials at all field offices, the 
site visits provided us with useful insights into the experiences of 
ICE officials responsible for investigating overstays, including their 
views on the processes ICE has established for conducting these 
investigations. In addition, we obtained data and interviewed 
officials from CBP and the State Department regarding their actions 
against overstays attempting to obtain a new visa or gain admission to 
the United States after having previously overstayed. In particular, 
we analyzed data from CBP on the number of overstays it determined to 
be inadmissible from fiscal years 2005 through 2010, and from the 
State Department on the number of visas it refused due to prior 
overstay violations from fiscal years 2005 through 2010.[Footnote 9] 
We assessed the reliability of these data by interviewing officials 
familiar with the processes used to collect, record, and analyze the 
data, and determined that the data were sufficiently reliable for the 
purposes of our report. 

To determine the extent to which DHS identifies and shares information 
on overstays, we analyzed the processes DHS and its components, 
particularly CTCEU and US-VISIT, use to evaluate suspected overstay 
records and collect nonimmigrant arrival and departure information. We 
compared DHS processes to internal control standards; analyzed US-
VISIT and CTCEU program documentation, such as guidance for evaluating 
overstay records; and analyzed data on the number of overstay leads 
identified and reviewed by US-VISIT from fiscal years 2005 through 
2010 and by CTCEU from fiscal years 2004 through 2010.[Footnote 10] We 
assessed the reliability of these data by interviewing US-VISIT and 
CTCEU officials who were familiar with the data systems and by 
reviewing program documentation and data systems' internal control 
procedures, and we determined that these data were sufficiently 
reliable for the purposes of our report. Further, we interviewed 
officials from US-VISIT, CTCEU, and the DHS Office of Immigration 
Statistics about the processes and systems used to analyze arrival and 
departure information and other immigration records for the purpose of 
identifying overstays. We also interviewed officials at CBP Office of 
Field Operations headquarters and conducted site visits to three land 
POEs, four sea POEs, and five air POEs to observe and obtain 
officials' views on the processes and systems used by CBP to inspect 
passengers and collect nonimmigrant arrival and departure information. 
We selected the POEs to visit based on their geographic proximity to 
other types of POEs (i.e., land, sea, or air) and to include POEs 
dispersed throughout the country, as well as their proximity to ICE 
field offices we visited. Although we cannot generalize the 
information obtained during the site visits to the experience of CBP 
officials at all POEs, these visits provided us with useful insights 
into the processes CBP uses to inspect travelers and collect 
nonimmigrant information at POEs, as well as the mechanisms DHS uses 
to share information about overstays. Additionally, to assess DHS's 
efforts to share overstay information, we interviewed officials from 
US-VISIT, ICE, and USCIS about their respective roles in sharing 
overstay information with DHS components and other federal, state, and 
local agencies, and also reviewed program documentation about the 
information sharing activities administered by these agencies. 
[Footnote 11] 

We conducted this performance audit from February 2010 through April 
2011, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit 
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for 
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. A more 
detailed discussion of our scope and methodology is contained in 
appendix I. 

Background: 

Process for Gaining Admission to the United States: 

Each year, millions of visitors come to the United States legally on a 
temporary basis. From fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2010, the 
State Department issued over 36 million nonimmigrant visas.[Footnote 
12] Approximately 82 percent of these visas were issued to 
nonimmigrants for business travel, pleasure, tourism, medical 
treatment, or for foreign and cultural exchange student programs. In 
addition, from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2010, over 98 
million visitors were admitted to the United States under the VWP. 

Generally, nonimmigrants wishing to visit the United States gain 
permission to apply for admission to the country through one of two 
ways. First, those eligible for the VWP apply online to establish 
eligibility to travel under the VWP prior to departing for the United 
States.[Footnote 13] Second, those not eligible for the VWP and not 
otherwise exempt from the visa requirement must visit the U.S. 
consular office with jurisdiction over their place of residence or, in 
certain circumstances, the area in which they are physically present 
but not resident, to obtain a visa.[Footnote 14] Upon arriving at a 
POE, nonimmigrants must undergo inspection by CBP officers, who 
determine whether or not they may be admitted into the United States. 
A CBP primary inspection officer first collects biographic and 
biometric information from a nonimmigrant. If during this process the 
officer has any concerns regarding the nonimmigrant's admissibility to 
the United States, the primary officer refers him or her for more in-
depth, secondary inspection. If CBP determines a nonimmigrant is 
admissible, he or she is granted an authorized period of admission. In 
addition, visitors traveling on nonimmigrant visas are issued a Form I-
94, and visitors from the VWP countries are issued a Form I-94W while 
in transit to or upon their arrival to a United States POE.[Footnote 
15] Each visitor is to give the top half of the form to a CBP officer 
and to retain the bottom half, which should be collected when the 
visitor departs the country to record their exit. See figure 1 for the 
process by which nonimmigrants enter and exit the United States. 

Figure 1: Process for Nonimmigrant Entry to and Exit from the United 
States: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Pre-entry: 
Obtain visa or travel authorization. 

Arrival: 
Manifest. 

Primary inspection biographic and biometric information collected: 
Port of Entry: 
a, I-94 visa; 
b. VWP: Electronic authorization; 
c. I-94 visa; 
d. VWP: I-94W. 

Secondary inspection: 
If CBP has concerns, additional inspection required. 

Status granted for authorized period of admission: 

Exit. 

Source: GAO analysis of DHS information; and Art Explosion (clipart). 

[End of figure] 

Definition and Regulatory Overview of Overstays: 

An overstay is a nonimmigrant who is legally admitted to the United 
States for an authorized period but remains in the country illegally 
after that period expired without obtaining an extension of stay or a 
change of status or meeting other specific conditions, such as 
claiming asylum.[Footnote 16] In-country overstays refer to 
nonimmigrants who have exceeded their authorized periods of admission 
and remain in the United States without lawful status, while out-of-
country overstays refer to individuals who have departed the United 
States but who, on the basis of arrival and departure information, 
stayed beyond their authorized periods of admission. As shown in table 
1, nonimmigrants who overstay generally fall into one of three 
categories. The statute establishes consequences for nonimmigrant visa 
holders, foreign students and exchange visitors, and nonimmigrants 
admitted without a visa, such as VWP nonimmigrants, who overstay their 
authorized periods of admission.[Footnote 17] 

Table 1: Overstay Categories and Legal Consequences for Nonimmigrants 
Overstaying Their Authorized Periods of Admissions: 

Overstay category: Nonimmigrant visa holders; 
Description of category: Nonimmigrants, such as those traveling under 
temporary visas for business or pleasure (which includes medical 
treatment), including nonimmigrants required to register under the 
National Security Entry-Exit Registration System--a program that 
requires certain visitors or nonimmigrants to register with DHS for 
national security reasons.[A] Most nonimmigrant visa holders admitted 
for business, pleasure, or medical treatment generally are allowed to 
travel up to 6 months in the United States, after which they must 
depart the country unless granted an extension of stay; 
Legal consequence for overstaying: In general, aliens who were 
unlawfully present in the United States for a period of more than 180 
days but less than 1 year and voluntarily departed the United States 
prior to the commencement of legal proceedings to remove them from the 
country are inadmissible for 3 years. In addition, aliens who were 
unlawfully present in the United States for 1 year or more, and who 
again seek admission within 10 years of the date of their departure or 
removal from the United States, are inadmissible.[B] For nonimmigrants 
whose overstay violations fall below 180 days, their visas are void 
and the State Department has the discretion to determine whether to 
issue them new visas and CBP has the discretion to readmit them into 
the country. 

Overstay category: Foreign students or exchange visitor visa holders; 
Description of category: In general, foreign students remain "in 
status" and therefore eligible to stay in the United States under 
their student visas as long as they are enrolled in a qualified 
education program. Individuals traveling on student visas are not 
generally issued a specific date until which they are authorized to 
remain in the United States, but instead are admitted for what is 
referred to as "duration of status."[C] This means that they may 
remain in the country until their visa expires so long as they 
maintain their student status (e.g., by enrolling in an academic 
program), and must depart within a specified period after completing 
their studies. Exchange visitors and vocational students generally are 
admitted for a specified period, although extensions are possible; 
Legal consequence for overstaying: In general, if students and 
exchange visitors fail to maintain their student or exchange status or 
to depart on time, they are considered out of status and begin to 
accrue unlawful presence either on the day after USCIS or an 
immigration judge determines that they are out of status or on the day 
after their authorized period of admission expires (if given a 
specified date). They are subject to 3 and 10 year bars on their re-
admission to the country, respectively, if they accrue more than 180 
days or 1 year of unlawful presence. 

Overstay category: Nonimmigrants admitted to the United States without 
a visa; 
Description of category: Nonimmigrants who are admitted without a 
visa, including those traveling under the VWP. Nonimmigrants traveling 
to the United States through the VWP are admitted for up to 90 days; 
Legal consequence for overstaying: If nonimmigrants traveling under 
the VWP stay beyond the authorized 90-day limit, they must obtain a 
visa from the U.S. consulate in their country of residence or physical 
presence in order to visit the United States again. They are subject 
to 3 and 10 year bars on their re-admission to the country, 
respectively, if they accrue more than 180 days or one year of 
unlawful presence. 

Source: GAO analysis of DHS and State Department information. 

[A] The visa categories provided to nonimmigrants traveling for these 
reasons are B-1 (temporary work), B-2 (pleasure or medical treatment), 
and B-1/B-2 (work and pleasure visa). Nonimmigrants may also travel 
under various other types of visas, such as for temporary religious 
and agricultural work. 

[B] 8 U.S.C. §1182(a)(9)(B). For many overstays, unlawful presence 
generally begins to accrue once an alien remains in the United States 
beyond his or her authorized period of admission without authorization. 

[C] Because DHS components identify and take enforcement action to 
address out-of-status students through the same processes as 
overstays, out-of-status students are included in the definition of 
overstays for the purpose of this report. 

[End of table] 

Comprehensive Biometric Entry and Exit System: 

The Immigration and Naturalization Service Data Management Improvement 
Act of 2000 required implementation of an integrated entry and exit 
data system for foreign nationals.[Footnote 18] This act replaced in 
its entirety a provision of the Illegal Immigration Reform and 
Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 that had required an automated 
system to record and then match the departure of every foreign 
national from the United States to the individual's arrival record. 
[Footnote 19] The Immigration and Naturalization Service Data 
Management Improvement Act instead required an electronic system that 
would provide access to and integrate foreign national arrival and 
departure data that are authorized or required to be created or 
collected under law and are in an electronic format in certain 
databases, such as those used at POEs and consular offices. In 2002, 
DHS initiated the US-VISIT program to develop a comprehensive entry 
and exit system to collect biometric data from aliens traveling 
through United States POEs. In 2004, US-VISIT initiated the first step 
of this program by collecting biometric data on aliens entering the 
United States. The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 
2004 required the Secretary of Homeland Security to develop a plan to 
accelerate full implementation of an automated biometric entry and 
exit data system that matches available information provided by 
foreign nationals upon their arrival and departure from the United 
States.[Footnote 20] In August 2007, we reported that while US-VISIT 
biometric entry capabilities were operating at air, sea, and land 
POEs, exit capabilities were not, and that DHS did not have a 
comprehensive plan or a complete schedule for biometric exit 
implementation. In addition, we reported that DHS continued to propose 
spending tens of millions of dollars on US-VISIT exit projects that 
were not well-defined, planned, or justified on the basis of costs, 
benefits, and risks.[Footnote 21] Since 2004, we have made numerous 
recommendations to address US-VISIT weaknesses, including that DHS 
ensure that US-VISIT expenditure plans fully disclose what system 
capabilities and benefits are to be delivered, by when, and at what 
cost, as well as how the program is being managed.[Footnote 22] DHS 
has reported taking action to address them. 

With regard to a biometric exit capability at land POEs, we reported 
in December 2006 that US-VISIT officials concluded that, for various 
reasons, a biometric US-VISIT exit capability could not be implemented 
without incurring a major impact on land facilities.[Footnote 23] 
Specifically, we reported that an interim nonbiometric technology test 
using radio frequency identification to collect departure information 
at land POEs did not meet the statutory requirement for a biometric 
exit capability and could not ensure that visitors who entered the 
country were those who departed. In December 2009, DHS initiated a 
land exit pilot to collect departure information from temporary 
workers traveling through two Arizona land POEs. Under this pilot, 
temporary workers who entered the United States at these POEs were 
required to register their final departure by providing biometric and 
biographic information at exit kiosks located at the POEs. DHS plans 
to use the results of this pilot to help inform future decisions on 
the pedestrian component of the long-term land exit component of a 
comprehensive exit system. 

With regard to air and sea POEs, in April 2008, DHS announced its 
intention to implement biometric exit verification at air and sea POEs 
in a Notice of Proposed Rule Making.[Footnote 24] Under this notice, 
commercial air and sea carriers would be responsible for developing 
and deploying the capability to collect biometric information from 
departing travelers and transmit it to DHS. DHS received comments on 
the notice and has not yet published a final rule. Subsequent to the 
rule making notice, on September 30, 2008, the Consolidated Security, 
Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009, was 
enacted, which directed DHS to test two scenarios for an air exit 
solution.[Footnote 25] DHS conducted these pilots in 2009, and we 
reported on them in August 2010. We concluded that the limitations we 
identified with the pilots curtailed their ability to inform a 
decision for a long-term air exit solution and pointed to the need for 
additional sources of information on air exit's operational impacts. 
[Footnote 26] We recommended that the Secretary of Homeland Security 
identify additional sources of information beyond the pilots, such as 
comments from the Notice of Proposed Rule Making, to inform an air 
exit solution decision. DHS agreed with the recommendation and stated 
that the pilots it conducted would not serve as the sole source of 
information to inform an air exit solution decision. 

Federal Agencies' Roles and Responsibilities: 

DHS and its components and programs, including CBP, US-VISIT, ICE, and 
USCIS are primarily responsible for taking action to identify and 
address overstays, as shown in table 2. In addition, the State 
Department is responsible for ensuring that the department's visa 
issuances follow guidelines related to overstays to ensure that 
individuals who have overstayed and are ineligible for a visa do not 
receive one. State Department's responsibilities also include 
identifying and denying nonimmigrant visas to potential intending 
immigrants--individuals who intend to remain in the United States for 
an indefinite period. 

Table 2: Roles and Responsibilities of Federal Agencies for Addressing 
Overstays: 

Federal agency: CBP Office of Field Operations; 
Overall role: Executes policies and procedures at POEs for the 
screening of travelers and merchandise entering the United States; 
Overstay responsibilities: 
* Determines nonimmigrant admissibility based in part on previous 
overstay violations and provides nonimmigrants an "admit until" date, 
by which the individual must leave the country to avoid overstaying; 
* Collects biographic and biometric information to verify nonimmigrant 
entry into the country and biographic information to verify 
nonimmigrant exit from the country. 

Federal agency: DHS US-VISIT; 
Overall role: Provides overstay and other information to various 
agencies; 
Overstay responsibilities: 
* Identifies overstays by matching arrival and departure information 
collected primarily through the Arrival and Departure Information 
System; 
* Provides overstays information primarily to; 
* CTCEU and also shares overstay information with USCIS and CBP. 

Federal agency: ICE Homeland Security Investigations CTCEU and field 
offices; 
Overall role: Investigate a wide range of domestic and international 
activities arising from the illegal movement of people and goods into, 
within, and out of the United States; 
Overstay responsibilities: 
* CTCEU: Uses information provided by US-VISIT and databases to 
identify visa, VWP, and national security registrant overstays, and 
out of status students, then assigns leads for further investigation 
by field offices; 
* Field offices: Investigate overstay cases and determine appropriate 
action to be taken, including initiating administrative procedures to 
remove an individual from the country, if appropriate. 

Federal agency: ICE ERO; 
Overall role: Identifies and apprehends aliens who are subject to 
removal from the country, detains these individuals when necessary, 
and removes illegal aliens from the United States; 
Overstay responsibilities: 
* Contributes indirectly to overstay investigation and enforcement 
efforts through various programs, such as (1) the Criminal Alien 
Program, (2) the Fugitive Operations Support Center, (3) Secure 
Communities, and (4) the 287(g) program[A]; 
* Responsible for the removal of deportable aliens from the United 
States. 

Federal agency: USCIS; 
Overall role: Adjudicates applications and petitions for immigration 
and citizenship benefits, including applications for nonimmigrant 
benefits and statuses; 
Overstay responsibilities: 
* Adjudicates immigration benefit petitions, which if pending or 
approved, may preclude individuals from being classified as overstays. 

Federal agency: State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs; 
Overall role: Adjudicates visa applications to determine if an 
individual is required to obtain or is eligible for a visa, and if so, 
issuing a visa; 
Overstay responsibilities: 
* Responsible for ensuring that visas are issued in accordance with 
applicable overstay laws. For instance, overstay violations may make 
an applicant ineligible for a visa. 

Source: GAO analysis of DHS and State Department information. 

[A] The Criminal Alien Program identifies, processes, and removes 
criminal aliens incarcerated throughout the United States, focusing on 
those that pose a risk to public safety. The Fugitive Operations 
Support Center operates under the National Fugitive Operations Program 
and reviews and monitors certain overstay leads generated by CTCEU to 
determine if any pertain to individuals that are fugitives or that 
become fugitives. Secure Communities is an initiative to modernize the 
criminal alien enforcement process, including the improvement of 
information sharing between federal agencies and state and local law 
enforcement agencies. The 287(g) program allows state and local law 
enforcement agencies to enter into a partnership with ICE in order to 
receive delegated authority for immigration enforcement within their 
jurisdiction. 

[End of table] 

Federal agencies use various databases to determine whether 
nonimmigrants have overstayed their authorized periods of admission to 
the United States. As shown in table 3, these databases provide 
information on foreign nationals' arrival to and departure from the 
United States, foreign nationals' applications to change status once 
in the United States, and the status of foreign students. 

Table 3: Key Federal Databases Used for Identifying Overstays: 

Database: Arrival and Departure Identification System; 
Agency responsible for managing the database: US-VISIT; 
Information maintained in the database related to overstays: 
Nonimmigrant arrival and departure information, the date until which 
an individual may remain in the United States, and various other 
information (e.g., the address where the individual will reside in the 
United States). 

Database: Automated Biometric Identification System; 
Agency responsible for managing the database: US-VISIT; 
Information maintained in the database related to overstays: Biometric 
information collected from nonimmigrants upon their entry into the 
United States (i.e., fingerprints and photographs). 

Database: TECS; 
Agency responsible for managing the database: CBP; 
Information maintained in the database related to overstays: Used at 
POEs to verify traveler information and contains lookouts--electronic 
alerts--for certain individuals (e.g., overstays). TECS also 
interfaces with other agencies' databases to share this information. 

Database: Student and Exchange Visitor Information System; 
Agency responsible for managing the database: ICE; 
Information maintained in the database related to overstays: 
Immigration status information for nonimmigrant foreign students and 
exchange visitors. 

Database: National Security Entry-Exit Registration System; 
Agency responsible for managing the database: ICE; 
Information maintained in the database related to overstays: Arrival, 
departure, and other information on nonimmigrants who are required to 
register with immigration authorities either at a POE or at a 
designated ICE office; for national security reasons. 

Database: Computer-Linked Application Information Management System 3; 
Agency responsible for managing the database: USCIS; 
Information maintained in the database related to overstays: Status of 
foreign nationals' petitions for extensions of stay or changes of 
immigration status (e.g., to convert from a tourist to a student). 

Source: GAO analysis of DHS information. 

[End of table] 

Federal Agencies Take Actions against a Small Portion of the Estimated 
Overstay Population, but Strengthening Prioritization and Assessment 
of Overstay Efforts Could Improve Enforcement: 

ICE CTCEU is the primary federal entity responsible for taking 
enforcement action to address in-country overstays, but it 
investigates and arrests a small portion of the estimated in-country 
overstay population due to, among other things, ICE's competing 
priorities. While ICE reports allocating a small percentage of its 
resources to overstay investigations since fiscal year 2006, the 
agency has expressed an intention to augment the resources it 
dedicates to overstay enforcement efforts moving forward. Currently, 
CTCEU prioritizes in-country overstay leads based on various factors 
that consider the potential risks overstays may pose to national 
security and public safety, and field offices investigate those leads 
that CTCEU identified as a priority. CTCEU has not yet established 
mechanisms for assessing its performance in meeting program goals. In 
addition to ICE's overstay enforcement activities, State Department 
and CBP also take action to prevent out-of-country overstays from 
returning to the United States and to deny nonimmigrant visas to 
potential intending immigrants. 

ICE Investigates Few In-Country Overstays, but Its Efforts Could 
Benefit from Improved Planning and Performance Management: 

CTCEU Efforts Result in Enforcement Action against a Small Portion of 
the Estimated In-Country Overstay Population: 

ICE CTCEU is the primary federal entity responsible for taking 
enforcement action to address in-country overstays, but it 
investigates and arrests a small portion of the estimated in-country 
overstay population. CTCEU identifies leads for overstay cases; takes 
steps to verify the accuracy of the leads it identifies by, for 
example, checking leads against multiple databases; and prioritizes 
leads to focus on those the unit identifies as being most likely to 
pose a threat to national security or public safety. CTCEU then 
requires field offices to initiate investigations on all priority, 
high-risk leads it identifies. For example, in 2009 CTCEU identified a 
suspected overstay from the United Kingdom who, intelligence 
indicated, may have been a suspected terrorist. CTCEU referred this 
overstay lead to a field office for investigation, which resulted in 
an arrest of the suspected overstay in August 2010. According to CTCEU 
data, as of October 2010, ICE field offices had closed about 34,700 
overstay investigations that CTCEU headquarters assigned to them from 
fiscal year 2004 through 2010.[Footnote 27] These cases resulted in 
approximately 8,100 arrests, relative to a total estimated overstay 
population of 4 million to 5.5 million.[Footnote 28] Although the 
percentage of CTCEU overstay investigations that resulted in arrest 
varied by the fiscal year in which they were initiated, Homeland 
Security Investigations field offices arrested from 20 to 27 percent 
of nonimmigrant overstays who were subjects of those investigations, 
as shown in figure 2. 

Figure 2: Percentage of Closed CTCEU In-Country Overstay 
Investigations Resulting in Arrest (as of Oct. 2010): 

[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph] 

Fiscal year investigation assigned: 2004; 
CTCEU overstay investigations not resulting in arrest: 5,900 (80%); 
Arrest: 1,509 (20)%. 

Fiscal year investigation assigned: 2005; 
CTCEU overstay investigations not resulting in arrest: 3,297 (73%); 
Arrest: 1,192 (27)%. 

Fiscal year investigation assigned: 2006; 
CTCEU overstay investigations not resulting in arrest: 3,114 (73%); 
Arrest: 1,180 (27)%. 

Fiscal year investigation assigned: 2007; 
CTCEU overstay investigations not resulting in arrest: 4,446 (79%); 
Arrest: 1,209 (21)%. 

Fiscal year investigation assigned: 2008; 
CTCEU overstay investigations not resulting in arrest: 3,712 (79%); 
Arrest: 975 (21)%. 

Fiscal year investigation assigned: 2009; 
CTCEU overstay investigations not resulting in arrest: 4,282 (76%); 
Arrest: 1,331 (24)%. 

Fiscal year investigation assigned: 2010[A]; 
CTCEU overstay investigations not resulting in arrest: 1,922 (74%); 
Arrest: 674 (26)%. 

Source: GAO analysis of CTCEU data. 

[A] According to CTCEU officials, fewer cases that were initiated in 
fiscal year 2010 have been closed relative to other years because a 
case that is assigned to a field office by CTCEU headquarters during 
one fiscal year may not be closed until a subsequent fiscal year. As 
such, field offices are working to close overstay cases that CTCEU 
assigned to them in fiscal year 2010. According to CTCEU data, as of 
October 2010, approximately 4,000 overstay investigations assigned to 
field offices from fiscal year 2004 through 2010 had not yet been 
closed by field offices. 

Note: Data presented in this table include outcomes of CTCEU 
investigations of suspected visa overstays, VWP overstays, National 
Security Entry-Exit Registration System overstays, and out-of-status 
students. These data do not include overstays arrested through ERO 
programs. ERO personnel may encounter overstays in the course of their 
work but they do not directly focus on overstay enforcement. 

[End of figure] 

In addition to overstay investigations that CTCEU headquarters assigns 
to ICE field offices, the offices can open their own overstay 
investigations. For example, CTCEU agents at all six field offices we 
visited stated that their offices have initiated their own overstay 
investigations. Also, ICE agents may encounter and arrest overstays 
during investigations they conduct through ICE's other investigative 
programs, such as worksite enforcement. Because ICE codes these 
investigations differently in its information systems, they are not 
included in the arrest data in figure 2. 

CTCEU overstay investigations that do not lead to an arrest result in 
one of three outcomes: (1) evidence is uncovered indicating that the 
suspected overstay has departed the United States; (2) evidence is 
uncovered indicating that the subject of the investigation is in-
status (e.g., the subject filed a timely application with USCIS to 
change his or her status and/or extend his or her authorized period of 
admission in the United States); or (3) CTCEU investigators exhaust 
all investigative leads and cannot locate the suspected overstay. 
[Footnote 29] Of the approximately 34,700 overstay investigations 
assigned by CTCEU headquarters that ICE field offices closed from 
fiscal year 2004 through 2010, about 8,100 (or 23 percent) resulted in 
arrest and about 26,700 (or 77 percent) resulted in one of these three 
outcomes.[Footnote 30] Among these approximately 26,700 cases, 31 
percent resulted in a departure finding; 32 percent in an in-status 
finding; and 37 percent in all leads being exhausted, as presented in 
figure 3. 

Figure 3: Fiscal Years 2004-2010 Outcomes of CTCEU Overstay Cases Not 
Resulting in Arrest: 

[Refer to PDF for image: pie-chart] 

Departed, individual has departed the United States: 31% (8,2000); 

In-status, individual filed a timely application to adjust their 
authorized admission into the United States: 32% (8,600); 

All leads exhausted, despite taking investigative steps agents cannot 
locate individual: 37% (9,900). 

Source: GAO analysis of CTCEU data. 

Note: Data presented in this table include outcomes of CTCEU 
investigations of suspected visa overstays, VWP overstays, National 
Security Entry-Exit Registration System overstays, and out-of-status 
students. 

[End of figure] 

ICE officials attribute the significant portion of overstay cases that 
result in a departure finding, in-status finding, or with all leads 
being exhausted generally to three issues: difficulties associated 
with locating suspected overstays, data timeliness, and data 
completeness. 

* Difficulties locating suspected overstays. ICE agents reported 
locating suspected overstays as challenging because the address ICE 
has on file for a suspect may be outdated or inaccurate, and if ICE 
agents are unable to locate the suspect after taking recommended 
investigative steps, they will close the case with an all leads 
exhausted outcome. CTCEU agents in two of the six offices we visited 
identified locating suspected overstays as the most challenging aspect 
of conducting overstay investigations. They explained that, although 
CTCEU headquarters only assigns investigations to field offices if 
there is a last known address for the subject, the subject may have 
moved to a new address or have never resided there in the first place. 
For example, the address available to CTCEU agents may be the one that 
the nonimmigrant provided on his or her Form I-94/I-94W when he or she 
was admitted to the United States, and the nonimmigrant may have 
subsequently moved.[Footnote 31] Prior to closing a case and reporting 
that all leads have been exhausted, CTCEU recommends that agents 
perform several steps to try to obtain additional leads for the case, 
including contacting relatives or other known associates, searching 
Internet sites (e.g., Google and Facebook), and contacting other law 
enforcement agencies. If an agent performs such steps and still cannot 
identify a valid address for a suspected overstay, the case will be 
closed with an outcome of all leads exhausted. These cases are 
subsequently monitored by a system that automatically queries various 
databases, such as Lexis-Nexis, on a weekly basis for new information 
relating to the location of the suspected overstay. If such 
information is identified, CTCEU will reopen the investigation. 

* Data timeliness. With regard to data timeliness, new information may 
be entered in DHS systems between the time CTCEU headquarters assigns 
an investigation to a field office and the time that the office 
undertakes the investigation that permits the field office to close 
the investigation. CTCEU agents in four of the six field offices we 
visited told us that additional data entered in this manner 
contributes to the frequency with which they close cases with a 
departure or in-status finding. For example, when a CTCEU headquarters 
analyst reviews an overstay lead, the analyst is to check USCIS 
electronic information systems to see if the suspected overstay has 
filed a benefit application with USCIS that places him or her in-
status. Although the suspected overstay may have done so, the 
application may not yet appear in USCIS's systems because the agency 
is still processing it and has not posted its receipt. When a field 
office agent opens an investigation, the first task the agent is to 
perform is to check DHS information systems for any new information 
related to the suspected overstay under investigation. If USCIS has 
subsequently posted that the suspected overstay has a pending 
application in its systems, the field office agent may see this 
information, determine that the suspected overstay under investigation 
is in-status, and close the investigation with an in-status outcome. 

* Data completeness. Incomplete data in DHS systems contribute to 
investigations resulting in departure findings when ICE field agents 
uncover evidence that the subject of a CTCEU investigation departed 
even though DHS systems contain no record of their departure. CTCEU 
agents in four of the six offices we visited cited missing departure 
data as a cause of cases resulting in a departure finding. For 
example, if the suspected overstay under investigation exited the 
United States through a land POE and did not submit an I-94/I-94W form 
to record his or her departure, there will be no indication in DHS 
systems that the suspected overstay has left the country, and CTCEU 
may open an investigation of the individual. Through ensuing 
investigative efforts, such as attempting to contact the suspected 
overstay by telephone or electronic mail, or asking Canadian 
authorities to review their records to determine if the suspected 
overstay entered Canada, CTCEU field agents may secure evidence that 
the suspected overstay has departed the United States and close the 
investigation accordingly.[Footnote 32] 

In addition to CTCEU investigative efforts, other ICE programs within 
ERO may take enforcement action against overstays, though none of 
these programs solely or directly focus on overstay enforcement. For 
example, if the ERO Criminal Alien Program identifies a criminal alien 
who poses a threat to public safety and is also an overstay, the 
program may detain and remove that criminal alien from the United 
States. Further, ERO's National Fugitive Operations Program may 
undertake efforts to locate a nonimmigrant who was ordered removed 
based on various immigration violations, including an overstay 
violation, but did not surrender for removal. ERO cannot reliably 
quantify the results of its in-country overstay enforcement efforts 
because in its case management system, ERO does not separately track 
overstay cases. Rather, ERO's cases are coded by the section of law 
that the subject violated, and these sections apply to violations that 
are broader than exclusively overstay violations. For example, 8 
U.S.C. § 1227(a)(1)(C)(i) makes any alien who has failed to maintain 
or comply with the conditions of his or her nonimmigrant status 
deportable. In addition to overstay violations, this could include 
remaining in the United States while no longer working as a foreign 
diplomat, religious worker, or temporary agricultural worker, among 
other possible violations. ERO officials told us that ERO plans to 
develop metrics for tracking the results of its in-country overstay 
enforcement efforts, pending the outcome of an ongoing internal ICE 
review of whether to shift more overstay enforcement responsibilities 
to ERO in the future. 

ICE Allocates a Small Percentage of Resources to Overstay Enforcement, 
but Plans to Augment Overstay Enforcement Resources: 

ICE has reported allocating a small percentage of its resources in 
terms of investigative work hours to overstay investigations since 
fiscal year 2006, but the agency has expressed an intention to augment 
the resources it dedicates to overstay enforcement efforts moving 
forward. According to DHS, ICE received approximately $1.7 billion in 
funding and about 8,000 full time equivalent positions in fiscal year 
2010 for domestic investigations, which include overstay 
investigations.[Footnote 33] From fiscal years 2006 through 2010, ICE 
reported devoting from 3.1 to 3.4 percent of its total field office 
investigative hours to CTCEU overstay investigations, as shown in 
figure 4. 

Figure 4: ICE Reported Percentage of Field Office Investigative Hours 
Dedicated to Overstay Cases: 

[Refer to PDF for image: stacked vertical bar graph] 

Hours in millions: 

Fiscal year: 2006; 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to other categories of 
investigations: 7,587 (96.7%); 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to overstay cases: 261 
(3.3%). 

Fiscal year: 2007; 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to other categories of 
investigations: 7,748 (96.9%); 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to overstay cases: 248 
(3.1%). 

Fiscal year: 2008; 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to other categories of 
investigations: 8,076 (96.6%); 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to overstay cases: 285 
(3.4%). 

Fiscal year: 2009; 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to other categories of 
investigations: 8,138 (96.6%); 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to overstay cases: 
282(3.4%). 

Fiscal year: 2010; 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to other categories of 
investigations: 8,864 (96.7%); 
Field office investigative hours dedicated to overstay cases: 304 
(3.3%). 

Source: GAO analysis of ICE data. 

Note: These data do not include ERO work hours, which may include some 
hours spent taking enforcement actions to address overstays. These 
data also do not include hours related to administrative activities 
associated with ICE investigations. 

[End of figure] 

In addition to CTCEU investigative efforts, other ICE programs within 
ERO may dedicate resources to overstay enforcement, such as ERO's 
Criminal Alien Program and National Fugitive Operations Program. 
According to ERO officials, because overstay enforcement is not a 
specific focus of any of ERO's programs, ERO does not track the number 
of work hours it dedicates to enforcement actions pertaining to 
overstays, but intends to do so if it is assigned additional overstay 
enforcement responsibilities as a result of ICE's ongoing internal 
review. 

ICE attributes the small percentage of investigative resources it 
reports allocating to overstay enforcement efforts primarily to 
competing enforcement priorities. According to the ICE Assistant 
Secretary, ICE has resources to remove 400,000 aliens per year, or 
less than 4 percent of the estimated removable alien population in the 
United States. In light of the large number of immigration violators 
the agency is responsible for addressing and its finite enforcement 
resources, in June 2010, the Assistant Secretary stated that ICE must 
prioritize the use of its resources to ensure that its efforts to 
remove aliens reflect the agency's highest priorities, namely 
nonimmigrants, including suspected overstays, who are identified as 
high risk in terms of being most likely to pose a risk to national 
security or public safety. In addition, the Assistant Secretary stated 
that the level of resources ICE dedicates to overstay enforcement 
efforts reflects the distribution of its resources among its competing 
enforcement requirements. As a result, ICE dedicates its limited 
resources to addressing overstays it identifies as most likely to pose 
a potential threat to national security or public safety and does not 
generally allocate resources to address suspected overstays that it 
assesses as non-criminal and low risk. 

ICE has indicated it may allocate more resources to overstay 
enforcement efforts moving forward, and that it plans to focus 
primarily on suspected overstays who ICE has identified as high risk 
or who have recently overstayed their authorized periods of admission. 
For example, the ICE Strategic Plan Fiscal Year 2010-2014 states that 
the agency plans to invest more resources to identify and remove 
aliens soon after they overstay in those fiscal years. Further, 
according to ICE's Assistant Deputy Director, ICE intends to put more 
resources towards identifying and removing aliens who were admitted to 
the United States in the current fiscal year and overstayed their 
authorized period of admission than aliens who entered the country 10 
years ago and overstayed. This official explained that ICE prioritizes 
recent overstays in part because they have generally established fewer 
ties in U.S. communities, and as a result, are more likely to be 
eligible for removal under law. However, regardless of the length of 
time a nonimmigrant has overstayed in the United States, ICE can take 
enforcement action against the overstay, including in cases when ICE 
encounters an overstay through other investigative programs or 
efforts, according to this official. In addition, the Assistant 
Secretary of ICE stated in March 2010 that it is imperative to expand 
the nation's enforcement efforts concerning overstays and other status 
violations, and ICE is reviewing its policies, programs, and 
procedures concerning overstays. 

According to senior ICE officials, as of January 2011, ICE is 
considering expanding ERO's overstay enforcement role by proposing the 
development of teams of officers within ERO dedicated specifically to 
enforcement action against civil (non-criminal) overstays and 
transferring some or all CTCEU overstay programming from Homeland 
Security Investigations to ERO. According to senior ERO officials, ICE 
senior management is reviewing an ERO proposal to create 5 to 7 teams 
of about 16 officers each devoted exclusively to overstay enforcement. 
According to ICE's Assistant Deputy Director, ICE and DHS management 
concur with this proposal and are considering requesting additional 
funds to support these teams in a future budget request.[Footnote 34] 
According to ERO officials, these teams would be located in the 
largest U.S. tourist destinations, such as New York and Los Angeles, 
and would each be projected to close approximately 600 cases per year. 
Although it is too early to tell what impact, if any, ICE's plans for 
allocating additional resources would have on the results of its 
overstay enforcement activities, the creation of ERO teams dedicated 
to taking enforcement action against overstays would represent an 
expansion of ICE's overstay enforcement efforts. In addition, ERO 
officials told us that ICE is considering transferring at least part 
of CTCEU's efforts for addressing overstays from Homeland Security 
Investigations to ERO, although no decision has been reached. 
According to ICE's Assistant Deputy Director, it is ICE's intention 
for ERO to focus on civil immigration enforcement and Homeland 
Security Investigations to focus on taking enforcement actions to 
address criminal violators and violators who pose a threat to national 
security; as overstaying is a civil violation, civil overstay 
enforcement falls within ERO's area of responsibility. 

As an intermediate step, in the summer of 2010, CTCEU began to provide 
all overstay leads it identified as low risk in terms of posing a 
threat to national security or public safety to the ERO Criminal Alien 
Program. However, according to the Acting Unit Chief, the Criminal 
Alien Program does not have sufficient resources to investigate these 
leads, and the program is still in the process of determining how to 
most efficiently and effectively utilize its resources to address 
civil, low-risk overstay violators. According to senior ERO officials, 
although there has been discussion within ICE about augmenting ERO 
resources for investigating overstays through programs such as the 
Criminal Alien Program, no specific plans for doing so have been 
established. 

According to ERO officials, ERO does not plan to assume responsibility 
for a portion of civil overstay enforcement until ICE assesses the 
funding and resources that doing so would require. ERO officials 
stated that ERO and Homeland Security Investigations have begun to 
assess these requirements but have not established a time frame for 
completing this assessment because ICE is considering transferring 
some overstay programming from CTCEU to ERO concurrently with 
considering the transfer of other Homeland Security Investigations 
functions to ERO. Program management standards state that successful 
execution of any program includes developing plans that include a time 
line for program deliverables. By developing a time frame for 
completing a resource and funding assessment and utilizing the 
assessment findings, as appropriate, ICE would be better positioned to 
hold its staff accountable for completion of efforts as management 
intended, thereby strengthening its planning efforts for executing its 
overstay enforcement activities moving forward. 

CTCEU Considers Various Risk-Based Factors in Prioritizing Its 
Overstay Leads: 

CTCEU prioritizes investigation of in-country overstay leads based on 
the perceived risk each lead is likely to pose to national security 
and public safety as determined by threat analysis. CTCEU 
investigations focus on suspected overstays it identifies as most 
likely to engage in activities that may pose a threat to national 
security or public safety. In order to prioritize investigation of 
overstay leads, CTCEU uses an automated system to assign each overstay 
lead a priority ranking based on threat intelligence information. The 
specific criteria CTCEU uses to rank the priority level of leads are 
determined tri-annually based on current threat information by the 
Compliance Enforcement Advisory Panel, an interagency panel of 
intelligence experts assembled by ICE for the purpose of determining 
these criteria.[Footnote 35] Although the threat-related criteria 
identified by the Compliance Enforcement Advisory Panel and used by 
CTCEU to prioritize overstay investigations are not publicly 
available, they center on country of birth, age, and gender. For 
example, CTCEU may assign all females within a specific age range who 
were born in a particular country the same priority ranking. In 
addition, if other threat information indicates that an individual or 
group of suspected overstays that do not fit within the specific 
criteria determined by the Compliance Enforcement Advisory Panel are 
high risk for engaging in activity that may pose a threat to national 
security or public safety, CTCEU will assign them as high priority for 
investigation. For example, upon receiving intelligence indicating 
that a suspected VWP overstay who did not fit within CTCEU's priority 
criteria was wanted by Argentinean authorities for drug smuggling, 
CTCEU prioritized the case for investigation. If a review by CTCEU 
analysts indicates that there is sufficient information associated 
with a priority lead (e.g., an address for the alien in question) to 
make it viable for investigation, CTCEU assigns the lead to a field 
office for mandatory investigation. 

CTCEU Could Benefit from Establishing Mechanisms for Assessing 
Performance to Address Overstays: 

CTCEU has not yet established mechanisms for assessing its performance 
in meeting program goals. We have previously reported that leading 
organizations promote accountability by establishing results-oriented, 
outcome goals and corresponding performance measures by which to gauge 
progress.[Footnote 36] In addition, Standards for Internal Control in 
the Federal Government and the Office of Management and Budget call 
for agencies to have performance measures and indicators that are 
linked to mission, goals, and objectives to allow for comparisons to 
be made among different sets of data so that corrective actions can be 
taken if necessary. Measuring performance allows organizations to 
track the progress they are making toward their goals and gives 
managers critical information on which to base decisions for improving 
their progress. According to DHS training materials, information and 
data gathered from performance measurement is in part to be used to 
plan for future resource allocations, to better manage programs, and 
to communicate to stakeholders the value the program is delivering. 

Although CTCEU has established an output program goal and target and 
tracks various performance measures, it does not have a mechanism in 
place to assess the outcomes of its efforts, particularly the extent 
to which the program is meeting its mission as it relates to 
overstays--to prevent terrorists and other criminals from exploiting 
the nation's immigration system.[Footnote 37] CTCEU's program goal is 
to prevent criminals and terrorists from exploiting the immigration 
system by proactively developing cases for investigation, and its 
performance target is to send 100 percent of verified priority leads 
to field offices as cases.[Footnote 38] CTCEU also tracks a variety of 
output measures, such as the number of cases completed and their 
associated results (i.e., arrested, departed, in-status, or all leads 
exhausted) and average hours spent to complete an investigation. While 
CTCEU's performance target permits it to assess an output internal to 
the program--the percentage of verified priority leads it sends to 
field offices for investigation--it does not provide program officials 
with a means to assess the impact of the program in terms of 
preventing terrorists and other criminals from exploiting the 
immigration system. According to senior CTCEU officials, the unit 
measures its progress against an output performance goal and target 
because the unit has not identified a means by which to measure 
program outcomes. Specifically, the unit has not identified any means 
to assess CTCEU's progress in meeting its mission other than to point 
out retroactively whether or not terrorists or criminals have 
exploited the nation's visa programs. If no status violators, 
including overstays, attack the United States or otherwise compromise 
homeland security, officials stated that they view this as an 
indication that the unit is performing well. However, CTCEU cannot 
directly attribute the fact that no overstays have attacked or 
compromised U.S. homeland security to its overstay enforcement 
efforts, as various other factors could affect or contribute to this 
outcome. 

We and the Office of Management and Budget have acknowledged the 
difficulty in developing outcome measures for programs that aim to 
deter or prevent specific behaviors, and have reported that in such an 
instance proxy measures--or indirect indicators--should be designed to 
assess the effectiveness of program functions.[Footnote 39] CTCEU 
officials agreed that the use of proxy measures with associated 
performance targets could better enable the unit to gauge its 
performance in meeting its mission and to measure the effectiveness of 
its overstay enforcement efforts. For example, a proxy measure for 
CTCEU could be the number of cases resulting in all leads exhausted 
per investigative hours worked, and the target could be to have fewer 
than an established number of cases per investigative hours worked 
result in this outcome. By undertaking efforts to develop performance 
goals and targets for outcome-oriented measures--or proxy measures if 
program outcomes cannot be captured--CTCEU could be positioned to 
track its performance in meeting its mission. This performance 
information, in turn, could provide CTCEU managers with information on 
which to base decisions for improving its efforts and performance to 
prevent terrorists and other criminals from exploiting the nation's 
immigration system. 

The State Department and CBP Have Taken Action to Prevent Ineligible 
Out-of-Country Overstays from Returning to the United States: 

In addition to ICE's activities, the State Department and CBP have 
taken action to prevent ineligible out-of-country overstays from 
returning to the United States, and the State Department also has 
acted to deny nonimmigrant visas to potential intending immigrants. In 
general, foreign nationals who have departed the United States after 
having remained in the country beyond their authorized periods of 
admission are ineligible to return to the United States for 3 years if 
they overstayed by 181-364 days, and 10 years if they overstayed by 
365 or more days. The State Department and CBP are responsible for, 
respectively, preventing ineligible violators from obtaining a new 
visa or being admitted to the country at a POE. 

According to State Department data, the department denied about 52,800 
nonimmigrant visa applications and about 114,200 immigrant visa 
applications from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 2010 due, at 
least in part, to applicants having previously been unlawfully present 
in the United States for more than 180 days, according to statute. 
[Footnote 40] These numbers equate to, on average, approximately 8,800 
nonimmigrant visa refusals and 19,000 immigrant visa refusals per year 
from fiscal year 2005 through 2010.[Footnote 41] According to State 
Department officials, although a small portion of these refusals refer 
to actions taken against people that illegally entered the United 
States without inspection or unlawfully remained in the country after 
having their status terminated, most of these visa refusals were due 
to applicants having overstayed their authorized periods of admission 
to the United States by more than 180 days.[Footnote 42] Similarly, 
CBP reported that it refused admission to about 5,000 foreign 
nationals applying for admission to the United States from fiscal year 
2005 through 2010 (an average of about 830 per year) specifically due 
to the applicants' previous status as unlawfully present in the United 
States for more than 180 days.[Footnote 43] The State Department may 
also deny applications for nonimmigrant visas if there is reason to 
suspect that the applicants do not intend to abide by the terms of the 
visas and are likely to remain in the United States beyond their 
authorized periods of admission. In effect, by denying intending 
immigrants nonimmigrant visas the State Department is acting to 
prevent these nonimmigrants from having the opportunity to overstay 
were they to be admitted to the United States.[Footnote 44] Although 
the manner in which the State Department tracks nonimmigrant visa 
refusal data does not allow it to isolate the number of refusals 
specifically targeting intending immigrants, State Department 
officials reported that this is a common reason for nonimmigrant visa 
applications to be refused. 

More Reliable, Accessible Data Could Improve DHS's Efforts to Identify 
and Share Information on Overstays: 

In the absence of a comprehensive biometric entry and exit system for 
identifying overstays DHS relies on two components--US-VISIT and 
CTCEU--to identify overstays primarily through analysis of biographic 
information. However, DHS's efforts to identify and report on 
overstays are hindered by unreliable data. Further, DHS has 
established a variety of mechanisms, such as overstay lookouts, or 
electronic alerts, to share information pertaining to overstays with 
its components and with federal, state, and local agencies that may 
encounter overstays as part of their law enforcement or other 
activities. DHS creates lookouts for certain categories of overstays, 
and expanding the categories of overstays assigned these lookouts 
could help improve CBP's ability to determine if these nonimmigrants 
should be re-admitted to the United States. Additionally, while CBP 
officers at POEs have reported facing challenges in obtaining 
information from USCIS to help make admissibility decisions regarding 
suspected overstays, USCIS has long-term plans to help address these 
challenges. 

Improved Data Reliability Could Strengthen DHS Processes to Identify 
Overstays: 

DHS Identifies Overstays Primarily Based on Biographic Entry and Exit 
Data: 

In the absence of a comprehensive biometric entry and exit system for 
identifying and tracking overstays, US-VISIT and CTCEU primarily 
analyze biographic entry and exit data collected at land, air, and sea 
POEs to identify overstays. US-VISIT identifies both in-country and 
out-of-country overstays by analyzing biographic data maintained in 
the Arrival and Departure Information System--a database that contains 
information on aliens' entry, exit, and change of status--and 
electronically and manually comparing Arrival and Departure 
Information System records to information in other databases to find 
matches that demonstrate that a nonimmigrant may have, for instance, 
departed the country or filed an application to change status and thus 
is not an overstay (see figure 5). For cases in which US-VISIT's 
analysis shows that a nonimmigrant may be an in-country overstay, DHS 
sends the lead to CTCEU for further analysis and possible 
investigation. For cases in which US-VISIT's analysis shows that a 
nonimmigrant visa holder departed the United States--an out-of-country 
overstay--but the departure was more than 90 days after the 
nonimmigrant's authorized period of admission expired, US-VISIT 
creates a lookout that CBP officers at POEs and State Department 
officials at overseas consulates can access to determine whether that 
nonimmigrant is eligible for re-admission at POEs or can receive a new 
visa upon application at a U.S. consulate. Appendix II provides more 
detailed information on US-VISIT's processes for analyzing in-country 
and out-of-country overstay leads. 

Figure 5: US-VISIT Review Process for Identifying In-Country Overstay 
Leads: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Arrival and Departure Information System Search: 
Overstay Search: In-country overstay report run through Arrival and 
Departure Information System. 

Automated Search: 
Matching Process: 
1. Reverse name search in Arrival and Departure Information System 
database. 
2. Search for additional immigration benefit application information 
in USCIS database. 
3. Search for additional departure records in CBP database. 

Prioritized Search: 
Record Selection: Removal of non-priority records. 

Manual Search: 
Manual Search By Analyst: 
1. Re-search through all relevant US-VISIT databases. 
2. Re-search for departure through CBP information. 
3. Re-search for benefit applications. 
4. Search for student compliance status. 
5. Search for criminal apprehension. 
6. Search through consular data to determine status. 
7. Search for record of deportation. 
8. Search for refugee or asylum status. 

Automated Search and Manual Search: 
If lead records are matched then they are closed. 

Sent to CTCEU: 
No matching record is found: 
Lead records sent to CTCEU for verification. 

Source: GAO analysis of US-VISIT information; and Art Explosion 
(clipart). 

[End of figure] 

In addition to US-VISIT's process for identifying in-country and out- 
of-country overstays, CTCEU conducts its own analysis to identify in- 
country overstays. Specifically, CTCEU analyzes (1) in-country visa 
overstay leads provided by US-VISIT, (2) in-country VWP overstay leads 
provided by US-VISIT, (3) out-of-status students based on Student and 
Exchange Visitor Information System data, and (4) overstay leads based 
on National Security Entry-Exit Registration System data. CTCEU refers 
viable leads--that is, leads for which CTCEU can identify a last known 
address--to ICE Homeland Security Investigations field offices for 
investigation, as shown in figure 6. CTCEU analysts conduct automated 
and manual checks to compare leads from the four sources against 
records in other databases that contain information on, for example, 
nonimmigrants' applications to change status, to determine whether 
nonimmigrants have overstayed and are likely still present in the 
United States.[Footnote 45] As shown in figure 6, the majority of 
leads from fiscal years 2004 through 2010 were closed through 
automated and manual checks, meaning that the nonimmigrants were found 
to have departed the United States or were determined to be in status. 
After the completion of manual checks, about 3 percent of leads were 
considered to be priority with viable addresses and sent to ICE field 
offices for investigation from fiscal years 2004 through 2010. 
Appendix II provides more detailed information on CTCEU's process for 
analyzing overstay leads. 

Figure 6: CTCEU Processing of Overstay Leads from Fiscal Years 2004- 
2010: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

US-VISIT visa overstays: 
US-VISIT VWP overstays: 
Student & Exchange Visitor Information System out of status students: 
National Security Entry-Exit Registration System overstays: 

CTCEU import of data from above sources. 

Leads sent through automated review. 

Leads prioritized by perceived risk based on threat information 
(1,373,000). 

Automated matched leads are closed (484,000); 
Leads determined to be non-priority sent to ERO (279,000; 
Leads determined to be priority that are not matched through automated 
review are manually reviewed: 
* Manually matched leads are closed (560,000); 
* Leads not matched but determined to be viable are assigned to field 
offices for investigation (39,000); 
* Manually reviewed, non-viable leads are sent to a contractor for 
continual monitoring (13,000). 

Source: GAO analysis of CTCEU data. 

Note: Leads do not total 1,373,000 because CTCEU revised its 
procedures for sending leads for continual monitoring in fiscal year 
2009, which resulted in these leads being double-counted in CTCEU's 
data system as both closed and continually monitored. 

[End of figure] 

Unreliable Data Hinder DHS Efforts to Identify Overstays and Report 
Overstay Rate Information to Congress and other Stakeholders: 

DHS's efforts to identify and report on overstays are hindered by 
unreliable data. Specifically, we identified four main challenges DHS 
faces in identifying overstays: (1) incomplete collection of departure 
data at POEs, (2) Student and Exchange Visitor Information System 
database limitations, (3) lack of mechanisms for assessing the quality 
of leads that CTCEU sends to the field offices for investigation, and 
(4) US-VISIT's backlog in analyzing potential overstay leads. 

Unreliable Collection of Departure Data at POEs: 

Without a comprehensive biometric entry and exit system, DHS relies on 
biographic information that nonimmigrants provide to CBP when entering 
and exiting the United States, including information on I-94/I-94W 
arrival and departure forms. CBP faces two challenges in collecting 
accurate and complete biographic information from nonimmigrants 
departing the United States through land POEs. First, CBP requires 
nonimmigrants leaving the United States through land POEs to remit 
their I-94/I-94W arrival and departure forms to record their exit if 
they do not plan to return within 30 days. However, CBP does not 
inspect travelers exiting the United States through land POEs, 
including collecting their biometric information, and CBP does not 
have a consistent mechanism in place at land POEs to provide 
nonimmigrants with the means to turn in these forms.[Footnote 46] 
Nonimmigrants departing the United States through land POEs turn in 
their I-94/I-94W forms on their own initiative. According to CBP 
officials, at some POEs, CBP provides a box for nonimmigrants to drop 
off their I-94/I-94W forms, while at other POEs departing 
nonimmigrants may park their cars, enter the POE facility, and provide 
their forms to a CBP officer. Remitting these forms represents the 
only method for recording that nonimmigrants left the country if they 
exit via a land POE. If departing nonimmigrants do not take the 
initiative to turn in their forms, DHS does not have complete 
information that the nonimmigrants departed the United States, 
hindering DHS's efforts to determine whether those nonimmigrants were 
overstays. Second, CBP faces challenges in ensuring the accuracy of 
the I-94/I-94W forms that nonimmigrants submit when departing through 
land POEs. In particular, at two of three land POEs we visited, CBP 
officials told us that there have been instances in which an 
individual other than the person listed on the I-94/I-94W form 
remitted the form to CBP. In such a case, CBP cannot be sure whether 
the nonimmigrant listed on the I-94/I-94W form actually departed the 
United States, as someone else turned in his or her form. As a result 
of these challenges, DHS faces difficulties in determining whether 
nonimmigrants have actually departed the United States through land 
POEs and identifying whether they overstayed their authorized periods 
of admission. 

Internal control standards call for agencies to develop control 
activities to help ensure that data are completely and accurately 
recorded.[Footnote 47] CBP officials at two land POEs we visited 
stated that because of the configuration of some land POEs--such as 
there being only one lane to accommodate all automobile traffic 
exiting the United States--establishing a mechanism for collecting I-
94/I-94W forms at these areas could greatly impede the flow of 
traffic. The CBP Director for Traveler Entry Programs stated that 
establishing a national policy for collecting I-94/I-94W forms at land 
borders could yield benefits, including to help DHS more reliably 
identify overstays, but would need to be weighed against costs, such 
as determining the indirect cost for travelers to stop in line to turn 
in I-94/I-94W forms and the potential impact on Canadian and Mexican 
border crossing processes, which relate to CBP's current border 
crossing procedures. This official also noted that the submission of 
these forms would not ensure the accuracy of the biographical 
information collected from nonimmigrants departing through land POEs 
because nonimmigrants could still fraudulently remit I-94/I-94W forms 
that belong to others. From August 2005 to November 2006, CBP studied 
the feasibility of using radio frequency technology to record 
biographic departure information from I-94/I-94W forms at land POEs. 
Through tests of this technology, CBP determined that it was too 
immature to meet the requirements of a land exit solution. While CBP 
studied a technological mechanism for recording biographic departure 
information at land POEs, CBP officials stated that the agency has not 
studied the costs and benefits of providing a mechanism for 
nonimmigrants departing the United States at land POEs to turn in 
their forms, such as a drop box. In 2006, DHS released a guide to help 
DHS components conduct cost-benefit analyses to identify the superior 
financial solution among competing alternatives. This guide identified 
cost-benefit analyses as a proven management tool for managing costs 
and risks.[Footnote 48] By analyzing the costs and benefits of 
developing a mechanism to provide nonimmigrants departing land POEs 
with a way to turn in their I-94/I-94W forms, CBP could more 
effectively determine if doing so presents a viable means for the 
agency to obtain more complete departure information for identifying 
overstays for possible investigation. 

In addition to these challenges in collecting complete and accurate 
departure information at land POEs, CBP has faced difficulties in 
ensuring the accuracy of departure information collected from air and 
sea POEs. Specifically, regulations require air and sea carriers to 
submit electronic passenger departure manifests--containing, among 
other things, the names and other identifying information of 
passengers--before the airplane or vessel departs from the United 
States.[Footnote 49] The regulations also specify that the carrier 
collecting the manifest information is responsible for comparing the 
travel document presented by the passenger with the travel document 
information it is transmitting to CBP to ensure that the information 
is correct, the document appears to be valid for travel purposes, and 
the passenger is the person to whom the document was issued.[Footnote 
50] However, carriers may elect to verify that a passenger matches the 
travel document he or she presented at a check-in counter prior to the 
individual entering the boarding area rather than doing so as 
passengers board the airplanes or vessels, and CBP does not have a 
process to perform this verification at boarding. CBP officials told 
us that, as a result, the current system for verifying air and sea 
departures is vulnerable to fraud. Specifically, a nonimmigrant could 
fraudulently make it appear as if he or she departed when in fact the 
nonimmigrant has not because another individual may have taken his or 
her place on the outbound plane or vessel. For example, one 
nonimmigrant could present identification when checking in to board a 
plane and to go through inspection at an airport's passenger 
checkpoint. However, once that nonimmigrant has passed the airport's 
security checkpoint, he or she could exchange a boarding pass with 
someone else and not board the plane. That nonimmigrant could then 
leave the airport and the other person could use the boarding pass to 
board the plane, thereby making it appear as if the nonimmigrant who 
did not board the plane departed the United States, potentially posing 
a homeland security risk. CBP officials stated that they could not 
estimate how often or if this scenario occurs, but stated that it is a 
vulnerability. As a result, CBP may not have accurate information on 
nonimmigrants departing through air and sea POEs, hindering DHS's 
efforts to reliably identify overstays. 

In addition, we have previously reported on weaknesses in DHS 
processes for collecting departure data, and how these weaknesses 
impact the determination of overstay rates. The Implementing 
Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act required that DHS certify 
that a system is in place that can verify the departure of not less 
than 97 percent of foreign nationals who depart through U.S. airports 
in order for DHS to expand the VWP.[Footnote 51] In September 2008, we 
reported that DHS's methodology for comparing arrivals and departures 
for the purpose of departure verification would not inform overall or 
country-specific overstay rates because DHS's methodology did not 
begin with arrival records to determine if those foreign nationals 
departed or remained in the United States beyond their authorized 
periods of admission.[Footnote 52] Rather DHS's methodology started 
with departure records and matched them to arrival records. As a 
result, DHS's methodology counted overstays who left the country, but 
did not identify overstays who have not departed the United States and 
appear to have no intention of leaving. We recommended that DHS 
explore cost-effective actions necessary to further improve, validate, 
and test the reliability of overstay data. DHS reported that it is 
taking steps to improve the accuracy and reliability of the overstay 
data, by efforts such as continuing to audit carrier performance and 
work with airlines to improve the accuracy and completeness of data 
collection. 

In addition, to help address these issues with the accuracy and 
reliability of departure data, DHS has tested biometric methods for 
positively identifying passengers before they board airplanes. For 
example, CBP and the Transportation Security Administration within 
DHS, conducted two test pilots for collecting biometric information 
from nonimmigrants at two airports in 2009. Under the CBP pilot, CBP 
officers collected biometric exit data at departure gates at Detroit 
Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. Under the Transportation Security 
Administration pilot, Transportation Security Administration officials 
collected biometric exit data at security checkpoints at Hartsfield- 
Jackson Atlanta International Airport. DHS issued an evaluation report 
on these pilots in October 2009 that, among other findings, reported 
that the location of officers in the CBP pilot provided a high level 
of confidence of departure, as all travelers encountered the CBP 
process and then had to immediately board the aircraft. As a result, 
they could neither circumvent the process to board the aircraft nor 
attempt to remain in the United States without raising immediate 
suspicion. In August 2010, we reported on this evaluation report, 
noting that the pilot data provided insight into traveler impacts, 
biometric capture procedures, traveler compliance, and staffing needs, 
and would support further economic analysis for an air exit solution 
decision, but that the scope and approach to the pilot tests 
restricted the pilots' ability to inform a decision for a long-term 
air exit solution.[Footnote 53] We recommended that DHS identify 
additional sources for the operational impacts of air exit not 
addressed in the pilots' evaluation and incorporate these sources into 
its air exit decision making and planning. DHS concurred with this 
recommendation and stated that the pilots it conducted would not serve 
as the sole source of information to inform its decision making. 

Limitations with the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System 
Database: 

The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database, which 
maintains biographical and immigration status information on foreign 
students and exchange visitors, has two gaps that hinder DHS efforts 
to identify foreign students or exchange visitors who are out of 
status for possible investigation. First, according to CTCEU 
officials, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System is not 
an account-based system, meaning that it does not link all of a 
nonimmigrant's records. For example, a student's activities--including 
applying to several schools, being dismissed from a school, or 
transferring to another school--are not linked together, making it 
difficult for ICE officials to determine a student's complete school 
enrollment history. Without this history, ICE officials stated that 
they face challenges determining whether a student has complied with 
the terms of his or her visa requirements, such as requirements for 
foreign students to be continually enrolled in a school while in the 
United States. Second, school officials are responsible for inputting 
student status information into the Student and Exchange Visitor 
Information System, and ICE officials stated that school officials may 
record student biographical information incorrectly or incompletely. 
For example, ICE officials told us that there have been instances of 
school officials not inputting a graduation date for a student. In 
such a case, if the student graduates and no longer meets the 
requirements for maintaining a student visa status, ICE would not be 
aware that the student is actually out of status. Further, according 
to ICE officials, school officials have inputted student information 
fraudulently into the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System. 
Specifically, officials from four of the six ICE field offices we 
visited told us they had initiated student fraud cases, including 
cases in which schools were knowingly reporting that students were 
fulfilling their visa requirements, such as maintaining a full course 
load, when students were not attending the school or only attending 
intermittently. For example, in 2008 ICE agents from the Los Angeles 
field office investigated and arrested an English language school 
operator who, in exchange for cash payments, assisted nonimmigrants to 
fraudulently obtain student visas and reported them as enrolled in his 
schools even though they were not attending classes. ICE officials 
said that the agency does not have the personnel and funding resources 
necessary to collect and update biographical and educational 
information directly from the more than 1 million nonimmigrant 
students, exchange visitors, and their dependents in the Student and 
Exchange Visitor Information System rather than relying on school 
officials at each institution to input this information. As a result 
of these weaknesses, the Student Exchange and Visitor Information 
System is vulnerable to fraud and data inaccuracies, hindering ICE's 
efforts to obtain accurate student status information, identify 
students who may be overstays, and refer viable leads for further 
investigation by ICE field offices. 

According to ICE officials, DHS is developing an updated version of 
the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which is expected 
to be implemented by the end of fiscal year 2011. Among other 
improvements, the updated version is to be an account-based system, 
allowing DHS to better monitor student activity. Further, ICE 
officials have established a new analysis unit within the CTCEU called 
the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System Exploitation 
Section to help address these vulnerabilities by, for example, 
analyzing Student and Exchange Visitor Information System data and 
referring school fraud criminal investigation leads to field offices. 
ICE officials said that because this section is new, it is too early 
to tell what effect the new section will have on strengthening efforts 
to identify student overstays and instances of school fraud. 

Assessing the Quality of Overstay Leads: 

While CTCEU has a method for collecting and tracking overstay leads it 
sends to the field offices for investigation, CTCEU lacks performance 
measures for assessing the quality of overstay leads it provides to 
ICE field offices. CTCEU officials stated that while it does not have 
performance measures associated with its analyses or identification of 
overstay leads, the unit developed an internal audit program for 
assessing its efforts. Under this program, CTCEU supervisors check 1 
percent of leads reviewed by CTCEU analysts to determine whether 
analysts correctly processed leads. Based on its audit program checks, 
CTCEU reported that from November 2007 through April 2010, the unit 
found 12 material errors--defined by CTCEU as leads that should have 
been identified as viable for investigation but were not or conversely 
should have been identified as not viable but were identified as 
viable--in analysts' review and identification of about 2,200 overstay 
leads. In addition, among the 2,200 overstay leads reviewed, the unit 
found about 1,700 nonmaterial errors--defined as errors that did not 
impact whether or not a lead was assigned to a field office for 
investigation, such as analysts not correctly recording information 
included in the leads, like nonimmigrants' identification numbers. 
This internal audit program can help CTCEU determine the extent to 
which it is correctly identifying viable overstay leads for 
investigation, and according to the audit program's concept document, 
is intended to help ensure that the CTCEU lead review process 
functions effectively. However, this program does not help ICE assess 
the extent to which the leads it identifies as viable for 
investigation ultimately result in an enforcement outcome, such as 
arrests. From fiscal years 2004 through 2010, 23 percent of leads 
investigated by ICE field offices resulted in arrests; the other 77 
percent of leads resulted in a finding of departed, in-status, or all 
leads exhausted. CTCEU officials stated that there are various reasons 
that leads do not result in an arrest. For example, officials said 
that databases used to verify leads may not have the most current 
information, such as a petition for an immigration benefit. ICE 
officials also stated that it can be difficult to locate overstays in 
cases when there is not a last known address, as overstays can move to 
other locations. 

Internal control standards require that agencies develop control 
activities as an integral part of planning, implementing, reviewing, 
and accountability for stewardship of government resources and 
achieving effective results. Control activities can include, for 
example, establishing and reviewing performance measures and 
indicators. While CTCEU does not have such performance measures, US- 
VISIT--which performs a similar function to CTCEU by providing 
overstay leads for investigation--has established an outcome measure 
based on the credibility rate of its leads becoming investigative 
cases. Specifically, US-VISIT measures the percentage of suspected 
overstay leads it forwards to CTCEU that are currently in the United 
States and have overstayed their authorized periods of admission, 
based on the information in the databases US-VISIT checks at the time 
of its review of those leads. US-VISIT officials stated they have 
found establishing this performance measure beneficial because it 
provides them with information that is helpful for improving the 
quality of its analyses to identify overstay leads. US-VISIT officials 
also stated that the credibility rate is helpful for training its 
analysts in areas where consistent errors were made, such as in 
reviewing refugee and asylee benefits information. CTCEU collects data 
on the results of its overstay investigations, such as the number of 
arrests resulting from leads sent to field offices for investigation, 
but does not use this type of information to assess the quality of its 
leads because it had not identified doing so as necessary. By using 
data such as this to assess the quality of its leads against 
performance measures and monitoring the results of those measures, 
CTCEU could obtain information to adjust its approach in identifying 
and assigning leads, thereby strengthening its overall overstay 
investigative efforts. 

Addressing US-VISIT's Backlog of Potential Overstay Records: 

US-VISIT has a backlog of several hundred thousand unreviewed 
nonpriority in-country overstay leads, which could impede US-VISIT's 
efforts to identify possible overstay leads for CTCEU to investigate. 
At the end of fiscal year 2009, US-VISIT reported a total backlog of 
about 959,000 in-country overstay leads, and program officials 
attributed this backlog to resource constraints and US-VISIT's focus 
on reviewing leads that meet ICE's investigative priorities.[Footnote 
54] The conference report accompanying the fiscal year 2010 Department 
of Homeland Security Appropriations Act noted congressional concerns 
regarding this backlog, stating that the backlog in overstay records 
was troubling and represented a major vulnerability.[Footnote 55] In 
response to this concern, DHS reprogrammed $5 million from fiscal year 
2009 to help address these backlogged leads, and US-VISIT officials 
reported processing approximately 587,000 of the backlogged leads in 
fiscal year 2010. However, as of January 2011, US-VISIT computer 
systems identified having a backlog of 1.6 million potential overstay 
records. According to US-VISIT officials, the 1.6 million potential 
overstay records include prior nonpriority overstay leads that have 
not yet been reviewed, nonpriority leads that continue to accrue on a 
daily basis, and leads generated in error as a result of CBP system 
changes. Specifically, CBP system changes resulted in multiple arrival 
or departure records being inadvertently created for a single 
individual. US-VISIT officials stated that they are currently in the 
process of addressing the impact of these CBP system changes by 
working with CBP to prevent multiple records from inadvertently being 
created in the Arrival and Departure Information System, which can 
subsequently cause some overstay leads to be generated in error. As of 
December 2010, US-VISIT was considering ways to improve the efficiency 
of its current operations so that it can process the remaining 
backlogged leads once its reprogrammed funds are fully expended by, 
for example, increasing the required number of leads contractors 
review. However, according to US-VISIT officials, as of February 2011, 
the unit had spent $3.7 million of the $5 million in reprogrammed 
funds and would not be able to prevent further backlogged leads from 
accumulating without additional resources. 

These four challenges--unreliable collection of departure data at 
POEs, Student and Exchange Visitor Information System database 
limitations, lack of mechanisms for assessing the quality of leads 
that CTCEU sends to the field offices for investigation, and US-
VISIT's backlog in analyzing potential overstay leads--hinder DHS's 
efforts to identify possible overstays in the United States for 
investigation by ICE. They also impede DHS from annually reporting 
overstay estimates and overstay rates, as required by statute. 
Specifically, by statute, DHS is required to submit an annual report 
to Congress providing numerical estimates of the number of aliens from 
each country in each nonimmigrant classification who overstayed an 
authorized period of admission that expired during the fiscal year 
prior to the year for which the report is made.[Footnote 56] DHS 
officials stated that the department has not provided Congress annual 
overstay estimates regularly since 1994 because officials do not have 
sufficient confidence in the quality of the department's overstay 
data--which is maintained and generated by US-VISIT. As a result, DHS 
officials stated that the department cannot reliably report overstay 
rates in accordance with the statute. Further, by statute DHS is to 
determine a disqualification rate for each country that participated 
in the VWP during the previous fiscal year--that is the percentage of 
a VWP country's nationals who applied for admission under the program 
during the previous fiscal year who were denied admission at the time 
of arrival (including those allowed to withdraw their application for 
admission at the POE or violated the terms of their admission, which 
would include overstaying the 90-day period of admission.[Footnote 57] 
According to statute, if DHS determines that a VWP country's 
disqualification rate is between 2 and 3.5 percent, the country is to 
be placed in probationary status for no more than two full fiscal 
years, with termination as a program country to follow if the rate 
continues to be 2 percent or more. If DHS determines that the 
disqualification rate is 3.5 percent or more, the country's 
designation as a VWP country is to be terminated at the beginning of 
the second fiscal year following the fiscal year in which the 
determination is made.[Footnote 58] Because DHS is not reporting 
overstay rates for countries participating in the VWP, decision makers 
do not have complete information for determining policy for probation 
or removal of countries from the program. In September 2008, we 
recommended, among other things, that the Secretary of Homeland 
Security designate an office with responsibility for developing 
overstay rate information for the purpose of monitoring countries' 
compliance with the statutory requirements of the VWP, and direct that 
office and other DHS components to explore cost-effective actions to 
further improve the reliability of overstay data.[Footnote 59] DHS 
stated that it was taking steps to implement these recommendations 
through actions such as working with airlines to improve the 
completeness of data collection. 

Broadening the Scope of Electronic Lookouts in Federal Information 
Systems Could Enhance Overstay Information Sharing: 

DHS Uses Various Mechanisms and Alerts to Provide Overstay Information 
to Federal, State, and Local Agencies: 

DHS has established a variety of mechanisms to share immigration 
information--including information pertaining to overstays--among its 
component entities and with other federal, state, and local agencies. 
We have previously reported on the importance of effectively sharing 
information between different agencies and across levels of 
government, and in 2008 DHS acknowledged that the department continued 
to face barriers in this area.[Footnote 60] Responsibility for 
administering and enforcing the nation's immigration policies is 
divided between various components within DHS and across the federal 
government, and state and local law enforcement agencies can request 
immigration status information from ICE on nonimmigrants they 
encounter, including whether those nonimmigrants are overstays. 

DHS has taken several steps to provide its component entities and 
other federal agencies with information to identify and take 
enforcement action on overstays. Whereas some of these mechanisms are 
designed specifically to share overstay information, other mechanisms 
are broader in scope but also communicate information that can be used 
to support federal overstay identification and enforcement efforts. 
Table 4 provides information about these information sharing 
activities. 

Table 4: Primary DHS Information Sharing Activities that Contribute to 
Federal Overstay Enforcement Actions: 

Activity description: Biometric and biographic lookouts on the records 
of overstay subjects are recorded in the Automated Biometric 
Identification System and TECS, respectively[B]; 
Contribution to overstay efforts: Overstay lookouts alert officials if 
a nonimmigrant has previously overstayed or is the subject of an ICE 
investigation. Subsequently, officials may deny entry or refuse to 
issue a visa or grant an immigration benefit to the nonimmigrant due 
to the overstay violation; 
Responsible DHS entity: US-VISIT creates lookouts for out-of-country 
overstay records generated by the Arrival and Departure Information 
System. CBP creates lookouts for overstay violators encountered at 
POEs. CTCEU creates lookouts for the subjects of its overstay 
investigations; 
Primary users of information[A]: CBP, State Department, and; 
USCIS. 

Activity description: Arrival and departure information about foreign 
citizens who travel to the United States is shared through the Arrival 
and Departure Information System; 
Contribution to overstay efforts: Using Arrival and Departure 
Information System records, federal agencies can determine if a 
foreign national has overstayed beyond his or her authorized period of 
admission; 
Responsible DHS entity: US-VISIT; 
Primary users of information[A]: CBP, ICE, State Department, and USCIS. 

Activity description: USCIS uses various electronic data systems to 
share information about a nonimmigrant's immigration status and the 
results of applications to change status or extend nonimmigrant 
stays[C]; 
Contribution to overstay efforts: Federal agencies use information 
provided by USCIS to help determine the immigration status of 
suspected overstay violators; 
Responsible DHS entity: USCIS; 
Primary users of information[A]: CBP, ICE, State Department, and US- 
VISIT. 

Activity description: ICE field offices share information about their 
overstay investigations to support deconfliction efforts[D]; 
Contribution to overstay efforts: ICE may share information about 
overstays who are also subjects of separate federal, state, or local 
investigations. Sharing this information helps to prevent ICE agents 
from coming into conflict with law enforcement actions being taken or 
considered by another agency targeting the same nonimmigrants; 
Responsible DHS entity: ICE; 
Primary users of information[A]: Federal, state, and local agencies 
participating in the same deconfliction activities as the field office. 

Activity description: ICE Law Enforcement Support Center, among other 
duties, responds to queries for immigration status information; 
Contribution to overstay efforts: In response to a query regarding a 
nonimmigrant's immigration status, the Law Enforcement Support Center 
informs federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies if the 
nonimmigrant appears to have overstayed his or her authorized period 
of admission based on available arrival and departure records[E]; 
Responsible DHS entity: ICE; 
Primary users of information[A]: Federal, state, and local law 
enforcement agencies. 

Source: GAO analysis of DHS information. 

[A] Although numerous federal agencies may have access to the shared 
information presented in this table, CBP, ICE, USCIS, and the State 
Department are the primary federal agencies with authority to use this 
information to take action directly based on overstay violations. 

[B] Biometric and biographic lookouts are electronic alerts that are 
linked to a subject's record in the Automated Biometric Identification 
System and TECS and automatically appear when the subject's 
information is run through these databases in the future. 

[C] According to USCIS officials, the Central Index System, Computer- 
Linked Application Information Management System 3, and Computer-
Linked Application Information Management System 4 are the primary 
USCIS data systems other agencies access for information about an 
alien's immigration status. 

[D] Examples of ICE's deconfliction activities include participating 
in task forces, coordinating with fusion centers, and sharing basic 
information about the targets of investigations in regional law 
enforcement information systems. 

[E] Once the Law Enforcement Support Center has provided its response 
to the requesting law enforcement agency, the local ICE field office 
is responsible for conducting any follow-up work required to make a 
final status determination and, if necessary, taking the appropriate 
immigration enforcement action against the nonimmigrant. 

[End of table] 

With regard to the use of biometric and biographic lookouts, US-
VISIT's efforts to share information about out-of-country overstays 
have contributed to State Department and CBP actions to deny out-of-
country overstays new visas and prevent their return to the United 
States. In particular, since fiscal year 2006, US-VISIT reported that 
the State Department has refused 3,250 visa applications from 
applicants who had overstay lookouts created by US-VISIT, and CBP has 
refused admission to 3,960 overstay violators applying for admission 
to the United States at POEs who had US-VISIT overstay lookouts on 
their records.[Footnote 61] Furthermore, as shown in figure 7, the 
number of applicants who had US-VISIT overstay lookouts on their 
records who were refused a visa or POE admission has generally 
increased each fiscal year since 2006. US-VISIT officials attributed 
this increase to the fact that the cumulative number of lookouts is 
increasing as new lookouts are created, thus expanding the population 
of overstays that could potentially be caught each year as a result of 
overstay lookouts. 

Figure 7: State Department Visa Refusals and CBP Admission Refusals on 
Records with US-VISIT Overstay Lookouts from Fiscal Years 2006-2010: 

[Refer to PDF for image: vertical bar graph] 

Fiscal year: 2006; 
State Department visa refusals: 0; 
Aliens refused admission by CBP: 5. 

Fiscal year: 2007; 
State Department visa refusals: 124; 
Aliens refused admission by CBP: 327. 

Fiscal year: 2008; 
State Department visa refusals: 546; 
Aliens refused admission by CBP: 895. 

Fiscal year: 2009; 
State Department visa refusals: 1,065; 
Aliens refused admission by CBP: 1,437. 

Fiscal year: 2010; 
State Department visa refusals: 1,515; 
Aliens refused admission by CBP: 1,296. 

Source: GAO analysis of US-VISIT data. 

[End of figure] 

Expanding the Scope of Overstay Lookouts Could Improve CBP's Efforts 
to Identify Overstays Attempting to Return to the United States: 

Electronic lookouts are one of the primary mechanisms DHS uses to 
share information about out-of-country overstays, but the current 
scope of the population to which these lookouts are assigned does not 
include certain categories of overstays, such as those who overstay by 
less than 90 days. We have previously reported on the importance of 
information sharing in a variety of contexts, and internal control 
standards call for agencies to communicate pertinent information to 
internal and external stakeholders so that people can perform their 
duties efficiently.[Footnote 62] Similarly, DHS has identified 
fostering information sharing as a core mission of the department, and 
in 2007 the Secretary of DHS issued a memorandum emphasizing that DHS 
personnel must have timely access to all relevant information they 
need to perform their duties.[Footnote 63] Biometric and biographic 
overstay lookouts immediately alert CBP's primary inspection officers 
at POEs--who generally have approximately 2 to 3 minutes to make 
admissions decisions--of a nonimmigrant's history as an overstay 
violator, at which point the officer can refer the nonimmigrant to 
secondary inspection for a more in-depth review of the alien's record 
and admissibility. Although CBP can, and does, identify overstays 
without lookouts through other means during the inspection process--
including interviewing the subject and reviewing arrival and departure 
data in information systems or in the subject's passport--CBP 
officials stated that overstay lookouts reduce the risk that overstays 
could be missed during the inspection process. Furthermore, in its 
fiscal year 2011 budget request, DHS credited the use of overstay 
lookouts as helping to increase the number of adverse actions taken 
against overstays at POEs and overseas consular offices. However, DHS 
does not create lookouts for the following two categories of 
overstays: (1) temporary visitors who were admitted to the United 
States using nonimmigrant business and pleasure visas and subsequently 
overstayed by 90 days or less; and (2) suspected in-country overstays 
who CTCEU deems not to be a priority for investigation in terms of 
being most likely to pose a threat to national security or public 
safety. 

US-VISIT is the primary entity responsible for creating biometric and 
biographic lookouts for suspected out-of-country overstays who were 
admitted to the United States using nonimmigrant business and pleasure 
visas.[Footnote 64] According to US-VISIT officials, the decision to 
focus US-VISIT's efforts on nonimmigrants who overstayed their 
authorized period of admission under these visas by greater than 90 
days was reached in accordance with its customers--CBP and the State 
Department--in 2006 in order to focus lookout creation on more 
egregious overstay violators. Specifically, CBP officials stated that 
90 days was selected as the threshold for lookout creation based on 
the agency's sense that nonimmigrants suspected of overstaying by more 
than 90 days were more likely to eventually be confirmed as overstays 
than nonimmigrants whose arrival and departure records indicated they 
had overstayed by 90 days or less. Consequently, US-VISIT does not 
review the records of, nor create overstay lookouts for, nonimmigrants 
who were admitted to the country using business and pleasure visas and 
subsequently overstayed by 90 days or less. According to US-VISIT, a 
total of 570 nonimmigrant records fell into this category of overstays 
in fiscal years 2007 through 2010 and were not subject to review by US-
VISIT for lookout creation.[Footnote 65] Although U.S. law does not 
automatically bar aliens who overstayed their authorized period of 
admission by 90 days or less from returning to the United States, 
their ability to be admitted on a subsequent visit to the United 
States is up to the discretion of CBP. As of January 2011, US-VISIT, 
CBP, and State Department officials reported that there have been no 
discussions between their agencies about revising the 90-day threshold 
for creating overstay lookouts since the original decision to 
establish this parameter was reached in 2006. According to US-VISIT 
officials, if the decision was made to do so, reviewing new records 
from this particular category of out-of-country overstays would be 
expected to result in a small increase in the number of overstay 
records US-VISIT would be responsible for reviewing each day. For 
example, incorporating the fiscal year 2010 out-of-country overstay 
records of 90 days or less from this nonimmigrant visa class would 
have resulted in US-VISIT reviewing approximately one additional 
overstay record each day. 

In addition to this category of aliens who overstayed by 90 days or 
less before departing, other categories of suspected in-country 
overstays also do not have lookouts assigned to their records. 
Specifically, neither CTCEU nor US-VISIT posts lookouts for 
nonimmigrants who are identified as suspected in-country overstays but 
who CTCEU deems not to be a priority for investigation in terms of 
being most likely to pose a threat to national security or public 
safety. CTCEU forwards these nonpriority leads to ERO, and according 
to CTCEU officials the decision not to create lookouts for these 
suspected overstays stems from concerns about the amount of resources 
and time that would be required to create and maintain the lookouts, 
as well as to respond to inquiries about the lookouts from other DHS 
components (e.g., CBP).[Footnote 66] Alternatively, US-VISIT officials 
reported that US-VISIT could potentially create lookouts for the 
nonpriority overstay leads that it sends to CTCEU, many of which are 
subsequently included in the leads forwarded to ERO. However, the 
officials said that US-VISIT would need additional personnel in order 
to be able to also create lookouts for these records. In the meantime, 
if the subjects of the leads that CTCEU currently sends to ERO depart 
the United States via an air or sea POE, their departure would be 
recorded in the Arrival and Departure Information System and 
transmitted to US-VISIT, which would then be responsible for creating 
out-of-country overstay lookouts for the aliens. Conversely, if any of 
these nonimmigrants depart the country by land and do not turn in 
their I-94/I-94W form to record their departure, US-VISIT would not 
receive their record from the Arrival and Departure Information System 
as a potential new out-of-country overstay. As a result, if these 
nonimmigrants try to apply for a new visa or for admission to the 
country in the future, they would not have overstay lookouts on their 
records to help alert the State Department or CBP officials about 
their previous violation. Nevertheless, it is still possible that the 
State Department and CBP could determine that these nonimmigrants had 
previously overstayed their authorized periods of admission by, for 
example, conducting database searches before determining whether to 
issue new visas or allow the nonimmigrants into the United States. 

CBP Office of Field Operations officials reported that having lookouts 
created for out-of-country visa overstay violations of 90 days or less 
and for in-country overstay leads that are sent to ERO could help CBP 
officers more effectively identify these overstay violators during any 
future attempts to gain admission to the United States. Similarly, 
officials from 9 of 12 POEs we visited reported that it would be 
beneficial to have lookouts created for these categories of overstays, 
and officials from two of the other POEs we visited stated that 
creating these lookouts could potentially be beneficial depending on 
the extent to which they contain detailed information about the 
factors that establish that the aliens are overstays. Nevertheless, 
although the CBP Office of Field Operations officials we spoke with 
expressed interest in having lookouts created for these categories of 
overstays, they stated that any decision to create these lookouts 
would also need to be weighed against potential costs that may be 
involved. For example, in the case of lookouts for non-VWP overstays 
of less than 90 days, there may be a risk that travelers could 
unnecessarily be referred to secondary inspection only to have CBP 
discover that they had a legitimate reason to overstay by a few days. 
[Footnote 67] Likewise, in the case of in-country overstay leads that 
are sent to ERO, since these leads are not manually reviewed by CTCEU, 
there is an increased likelihood that lookouts based on these leads 
could be inaccurate, which could result in travelers unnecessarily 
being referred to secondary inspection. State Department officials we 
spoke with were unsure of the extent to which creating lookouts for 
these categories of overstays could provide added value to its visa 
adjudication process, and stated they would need to communicate with 
DHS about the potential benefits and costs associated with taking this 
step in order to determine if it would be beneficial. 

Being aware that an alien has previously committed an overstay 
violation is necessary if CBP is to accurately determine whether or 
not the violator should be re-admitted to the United States. Creating 
lookouts for these additional categories of overstays would help to 
alert CBP to these aliens' overstay history, thereby better 
positioning the agency to accurately identify these aliens as 
overstays and to incorporate this information into future 
admissibility decisions involving these nonimmigrants. For example, 
CBP officials at two POEs we visited stated that creating lookouts for 
these two categories of overstays would provide another layer of 
security in targeting overstays and would help to lessen the burden on 
primary inspection officers attempting to identify overstays seeking 
to gain admission to the country. Furthermore, to the extent these 
expanded lookouts help CBP identify overstays encountered at POEs, the 
lookouts could also help improve CBP's ability to take enforcement 
action against these overstays, including denying them the opportunity 
to be admitted to the country and to overstay again. Additionally, 
officials from three POEs we visited reported that including these 
overstays on US-VISIT's biometric watch list would help CBP inspection 
officers positively identify overstays regardless of any efforts taken 
by the aliens to conceal their violations, such as through the use of 
fraudulent documents or backdated passport stamps. Although CBP Office 
of Field Operations officials told us that creating lookouts for these 
categories of overstays would likely be beneficial and could help to 
reduce the risk that overstays could be missed during inspections, 
they acknowledged that expanding the scope of overstay lookouts in 
this manner could also produce unintended costs, such as nonimmigrants 
being unnecessarily referred to secondary inspection. According to 
these officials, CBP has not performed an assessment to determine if 
the benefits of creating these new lookouts would outweigh the 
potential costs, nor does the agency have plans to conduct this type 
of assessment. Conducting such an assessment could help CBP determine 
the benefits that could be gained from the creation of lookouts for 
these categories of overstays relative to the costs, such as the use 
of additional resources, which could result from creating the lookouts. 

CBP Inspection Officers Face Challenges in Obtaining Information from 
USCIS to Address Overstays, but USCIS Has Long-Term Plans to Help 
Address These Challenges: 

USCIS provides immigration status information to federal agencies 
responsible for identifying and addressing overstays, but CBP 
officials from 9 of 12 POEs we visited reported facing challenges on 
some occasions obtaining information from USCIS. The ability to access 
USCIS's information about pending or authorized changes to 
nonimmigrants' status or the length of their stay in the United States 
is particularly important to agencies seeking to identify and address 
overstays, and can alter their determination of whether an alien has 
committed an overstay violation. For example, if USCIS approves a 
change of status or extension of stay for a nonimmigrant, the alien 
may be authorized to remain in the country beyond his or her original 
period of admission without qualifying as an overstay. Likewise, 
nonimmigrants who have submitted a timely application to change their 
status or extend their stay do not accrue unlawful presence while 
their application is pending, and can be allowed to remain in the 
United States beyond their original period of admission until their 
case has been adjudicated by USCIS. As a result, even in instances 
where an alien's arrival and departure dates indicate that an overstay 
violation has occurred, checking the alien's record with USCIS may 
show that the alien was authorized to remain in the United States 
beyond his or her original period of admission. 

Given the importance of this information for correctly identifying 
overstays, being able to access timely, current, and accurate 
information from USCIS about an alien's immigration status and 
applications for immigration benefits is important for federal 
agencies conducting overstay enforcement activities. USCIS has 
identified ineffective information sharing with its government 
partners as one of the agency's challenges, and has previously 
acknowledged that information it shares with other agencies is 
sometimes difficult to obtain, incomplete, or not current. In order to 
help share information with other agencies, USCIS has granted several 
agencies--including CBP, ICE, the State Department, and officials from 
US-VISIT--access to select USCIS databases to allow these agencies to 
search for and view various immigration records, such as nonimmigrant 
applications for extensions of stay or changes of status. In 
particular, USCIS officials identified the Computer-Linked Application 
Information Management System 3 and the Central Index System as the 
primary USCIS databases containing information relevant to identifying 
overstays.[Footnote 68] Also, in 2007 USCIS deployed the Person 
Centric Query Service, which helps to streamline the process of 
searching for information in USCIS's databases by enabling users to 
search multiple databases with a single query. 

However, officials we interviewed at CBP, ICE, and the State 
Department reported overall mixed views about their ability to obtain 
information from USCIS in order to make timely and accurate 
immigration status determinations. Although officials from the State 
Department and the ICE field offices we visited did not generally 
raise concerns about their ability to obtain information from USCIS 
for the purpose of taking enforcement action against overstays, CBP 
officials at some of the POEs we visited reported experiencing 
challenges on some occasions with obtaining the information they need 
from USCIS for the purpose of identifying overstays encountered at 
POEs. In particular, officials at 9 of the 12 POEs described 
challenges they have encountered in trying to search for and locate 
records in USCIS's databases, and officials at 5 of the 12 POEs 
described instances where it has been challenging to contact USCIS 
directly for assistance with questions about an alien's immigration 
status or to obtain information maintained in the alien's A-File. 
According to CBP officials, in instances where CBP officers are unable 
to obtain, or are otherwise delayed in receiving the information they 
need from USCIS to determine the admissibility of a suspected 
overstay, CBP officials may find it necessary to defer the alien's 
inspection or make an admission decision based only on the information 
available to them at the time.[Footnote 69] 

Despite USCIS having an electronic information sharing infrastructure 
in place, several challenges prevent CBP officials from being able to 
obtain all of the information they need from USCIS by searching its 
electronic databases alone. In particular, USCIS's operating processes 
are paper based, which can result in some application and other case 
information not being captured electronically, and thus not being 
available to officials from other agencies searching USCIS's 
databases. According to USCIS officials we interviewed, the extent to 
which application information is captured electronically in the 
agency's databases varies between different types of benefit 
applications. Whereas some forms contain a limited number of fields 
that are not available to be viewed electronically, there are other 
types of applications--such as Form I-290B, which is used to appeal 
USCIS adjudication decisions--for which the entire application form is 
not captured electronically and can only be viewed in hard copy. 

Additionally, USCIS officials stated that the Computer-Linked 
Application Information Management System 3 can be a difficult system 
for users from outside of the agency to navigate, and they stated that 
in some cases external users may not know how to effectively use the 
system to locate information. For example, USCIS's systems are event- 
based rather than account-based, which, according to USCIS officials, 
can result in different records about the same nonimmigrant (e.g., 
from multiple applications) not being automatically linked together in 
USCIS's databases. Consequently, external officials may have to run 
several queries to assemble all information for a nonimmigrant, and if 
any of the nonimmigrant's records are not located during this process 
the requesting entity may not have access to all of the information 
needed to make an accurate immigration enforcement decision. Although 
USCIS officials told us that the introduction of the Person Centric 
Query Service in recent years has helped to improve the ability of 
external users to search for information in USCIS's databases, USCIS 
does not consider this capability to be a final solution to its 
information sharing challenges. Instead, in order to address these and 
other challenges, in 2007 USCIS initiated a project to transform its 
operating processes and data systems. 

Among other things, the USCIS Transformation Program is designed to 
help the agency move away from its current paper-based process to an 
electronic environment, and it is expected to result in the 
development of a new information system that will eventually replace 
the Computer-Linked Application Information Management System. USCIS 
plans to begin implementing portions of the new information system in 
late 2011, and estimates that full implementation of the 
Transformation Program will be completed by fiscal year 2014. Although 
USCIS expects the Transformation Program to improve its ability to 
share information with other agencies, it is too early to tell what 
impact the program will have on strengthening CBP's ability to obtain 
information from USCIS regarding nonimmigrants' immigration status or 
applications for changes in status or other benefits. We have ongoing 
work assessing USCIS's transformation efforts for the House Committee 
on the Judiciary and the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs, and plan to report on these efforts later this 
year. 

Conclusions: 

Identifying and taking enforcement action to address the estimated 4 
million to 5.5 million foreign visitors who are estimated to have 
entered the United States legally but then overstayed is a daunting 
task. Given the government's finite resources for addressing 
overstays, competing priorities, and the magnitude of the estimated 
overstay population, it is particularly important that DHS overstay 
enforcement programs utilize leading program management practices to 
plan and execute overstay programs and effectively assess program 
results so that corrective actions can be taken if necessary. By 
establishing a time frame for assessing the funding and resources ERO 
would require to assume some responsibility for enforcement of civil 
nonpriority overstay violators and utilizing assessment findings, as 
appropriate, ICE could strengthen its planning efforts for executing 
its overstay enforcement activities moving forward. In addition, by 
establishing mechanisms to measure the outcomes of programs intended 
to address overstays in accordance with leading practices for 
performance management, CTCEU program managers could have more 
specific information with which to make informed decisions as to what 
program adjustments might be necessary, if any, to maximize program 
effectiveness. 

Identifying overstays is challenging, particularly given that, in the 
absence of biometric departure data, DHS must rely on biographic 
information to do so. As DHS's ability to accurately identify 
overstays is largely dependent on the quality of the alien arrival and 
departure data CBP collects, it is important that CBP take steps to 
ensure these data are as reliable as possible. By establishing a 
mechanism to collect biographic I-94/I-94W exit documentation at land 
POEs to the extent that benefits outweigh costs, CBP could better 
ensure the completeness of alien departure data. Also, the reliability 
of leads sent to field offices is important because ICE has limited 
resources to investigate a large population of overstays. By 
developing and using performance measures to assess the quality of 
overstay leads, CTCEU's process for validating leads could improve and 
commensurately focus ICE field office resources on more promising 
overstay investigations. DHS's ability to share information between 
the many governmental entities involved in administering the nation's 
immigration laws also has an impact on the effectiveness of its 
efforts to identify and take enforcement action against overstays. 
Although the department has established various mechanisms to share 
immigration information, expanding the scope of overstay lookouts 
could improve CBP's ability to identify overstays during the 
inspection process, and by extension, better position it to take 
enforcement action to address overstay violators attempting to re-
enter the United States. 

Recommendations for Executive Action: 

To help ICE's execution of overstay enforcement efforts; and improve 
assessment of ICE programs that identify and address overstays so that 
program adjustments can be made, if necessary; we recommend that the 
Assistant Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement take the 
following three actions: 

* establish a target time frame for assessing the funding and 
resources ERO would require in order to assume responsibility for 
civil overstay enforcement and use the results of that assessment; 

* develop outcome-based performance measures--or proxy measures if 
program outcomes cannot be captured--and associated targets on CTCEU's 
progress in preventing terrorists and other criminals from exploiting 
the nation's immigration system; and: 

* develop a performance measure for assessing the quality of leads 
CTCEU assigns to ICE field offices for investigations, using 
performance information already collected by CTCEU. 

To increase the completeness of exit information available for the 
purpose of identifying overstays, we recommend that the Commissioner 
of Customs and Border Protection analyze the costs and benefits of 
developing a standard mechanism for collecting I-94/I-94W forms at 
land POEs, and develop a standard mechanism to collect these forms, to 
the extent that benefits outweigh the costs. 

To improve information sharing in support of efforts to identify and 
take enforcement action against overstays, we recommend that the 
Secretary of Homeland Security direct the Commissioner of Customs and 
Border Protection, the Under Secretary of the National Protection and 
Programs Directorate, and the Assistant Secretary of Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement to assess the costs and benefits of creating 
biometric and biographic lookouts for (1) out-of-country overstays of 
90 days or less who entered the country using nonimmigrant business 
and pleasure visas, and (2) in-country overstay leads sent to ERO, and 
create these lookouts, to the extent that the benefits of doing so 
outweigh the costs. 

Agency Comments and Our Evaluation: 

We provided a draft of this report to DHS and the State Department for 
their review and comment. On April 11, 2011, we received written 
comments on the draft report from DHS, which are reproduced in full in 
appendix III. DHS concurred with our five recommendations and 
described actions under way or planned to address them. DHS also 
provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. 

With regard to our first recommendation that ICE establish a target 
time frame for assessing the funding and resources ERO would require 
in order to assume responsibility for civil overstay enforcement and 
use the results of that assessment, DHS stated that ICE is in the 
process of planning for ERO to assume this responsibility. 
Specifically, DHS stated that ICE will identify the resources needed 
to transition this responsibility to ERO as part of the Fiscal Year 
2013 Resource Allocation Plan. We believe that setting a target time 
for completing funding and resource assessment efforts would help ICE 
hold its staff accountable for completing these efforts. With regard 
to our second recommendation that ICE develop outcome-based 
performance measures or proxy measures and associated targets for 
assessing CTCEU's progress in preventing exploitation of the nation's 
immigration system, DHS stated that ICE plans to consult with DHS's 
national security partners to determine if proxy measures can be 
implemented. Establishing performance measures or proxy measures 
should help strengthen ICE's overstay enforcement efforts and 
assessment of ICE programs that identify and address overstays. 

With regard to our third recommendation that ICE develop a performance 
measure for assessing the quality of leads CTCEU assigns to ICE field 
offices for investigations, DHS stated that, while the department 
concurred with the recommendation, CTCEU disagreed with our assessment 
that the metric it uses to assess the quality of overstay leads--a 
sampling of 1 percent of daily leads to correct deficient information 
and determine if additional training is needed to correct repetitive 
errors--is not sufficient to assess the quality of leads. CTCEU stated 
that one of the challenges to developing a metric is that it has to 
rely on information from other DHS components to formulate leads, and 
when that information becomes more reliable and accurate, CTCEU's 
leads should also become more reliable. While we recognize that CTCEU 
relies on data from various components to conduct its work and that 
the quality of its leads is impacted by the quality of data it uses to 
formulate them, we continue to believe that CTCEU could benefit from 
using information that it already collects through its sampling 
process to assess the quality of its leads against performance 
measures and monitoring the results of those measures. Through such 
assessment and monitoring, we believe CTCEU could obtain information 
to adjust its approach in identifying and assigning leads, as needed, 
to strengthen its overall overstay enforcement efforts. 

To address our fourth recommendation, that CBP analyze the costs and 
benefits of developing a standard mechanism for collecting I-94/I-94W 
forms at land POEs, CBP proposed the completion of a cost effective 
independent evaluation. CBP also noted that different operating 
environments may render a standard mechanism for collecting I-94/I-94W 
forms inefficient. We recognize that different operating environments 
can effect the efficient collection of these forms, as we have 
reported, and believe this would be an important consideration in such 
an evaluation. Finally, DHS stated that in response to our fifth 
recommendation to assess the costs and benefits of creating biometric 
and biographic lookouts for out-of-country overstays of 90 days or 
less and in-country overstay leads sent to ERO, that ICE, CBP, and the 
National Protection and Programs Directorate will work together to 
assess the costs and benefits of creating lookouts for these 
categories of overstays, and that the results of this assessment will 
be used to determine the feasibility of additional program costs. 

The State Department did not have formal comments on our draft report, 
but provided technical comments, which we incorporated as appropriate. 

As agreed with your offices, unless you publicly announce the contents 
of this report earlier, we plan no further distribution until 30 days 
from the report date. At that time, we will send copies of this report 
to the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State, selected 
congressional committees, and other interested parties. In addition, 
the report will be available at no charge on the GAO Web site at 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov]. 

If you or your staff have any questions concerning this report, please 
contact me at (202) 512-8777, or StanaR@gao.gov. Contact points for 
our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found 
on the last page of this report. Key contributors are listed in 
appendix IV. 

Signed by: 

Richard M. Stana: 
Director, Homeland Security and Justice Issues: 

[End of section] 

Appendix I: Scope and Methodology: 

To determine the extent to which federal agencies take actions to 
address overstays, we analyzed program documentation, collected data, 
and interviewed officials from the Department of Homeland Security 
(DHS) and its components, including U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement (ICE); U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP); U.S. 
Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS); and the United States 
Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology program(US-VISIT); 
and the State Department. In particular, we analyzed ICE 
documentation, such as standard operating procedures, memos, and 
guidance for investigations, to determine the goals, programs, 
processes, and systems ICE has established for the purpose of taking 
enforcement action against suspected overstays located within the 
United States. We also interviewed ICE officials from the 
Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU) and 
Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) headquarters, and conducted 
site visits to six ICE Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent 
in Charge field offices (located in Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, 
California; San Diego, California; Miami, Florida; New York, New York; 
and Newark, New Jersey).[Footnote 70] We selected these locations 
based on (1) the range in the number of overstays investigations 
completed by the offices from fiscal year 2004 through fiscal year 
2010; (2) the offices' geographic location; and (3) the offices' 
proximity to CBP ports of entry (POE) we visited.[Footnote 71] While 
the information we obtained from officials at these locations cannot 
be generalized across all 26 Special Agent in Charge field offices, 
the visits provided us with the perspectives of ICE officials 
responsible for conducting overstay investigations, including their 
views on the processes ICE has established for conducting and 
overseeing these investigations and any challenges they have faced in 
investigating overstay cases. We also assessed the extent to which 
CTCEU's program practices were consistent with standard practices for 
program management and GAO's Standards for Internal Control in the 
Federal Government.[Footnote 72] 

Further, we obtained and analyzed data from ICE's system for tracking 
overstay leads on the results of CTCEU's overstay investigations from 
fiscal year 2004 through fiscal year 2010.[Footnote 73] In addition, 
we determined the extent to which Homeland Security Investigations 
dedicates investigative resources to overstay investigations by 
analyzing data on investigative hours by case category for fiscal 
years 2006 through 2010.[Footnote 74] We assessed the reliability of 
these data by (1) reviewing existing documentation and documentation 
we collected on the controls in the systems and the policies for 
ensuring data reliability; and (2) interviewing agency officials who 
are familiar with the source of the data and internal controls built 
into ICE's systems, as well as the quality assurance steps performed 
after data are entered into the systems. We determined that the data 
were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our report. 

Moreover, we analyzed documentation, such as field office manuals and 
program memos, regarding enforcement actions taken by CBP and the 
State Department against out-of-country overstays attempting to be 
admitted to the United States or apply for a new visa. We also 
interviewed officials from the CBP Office of Field Operations and the 
State Department Bureau of Consular Affairs to identify the types of 
actions taken against overstays by these agencies and the 
circumstances in which these actions occur. We analyzed data provided 
by CBP on POE inadmissibilities, and the State Department on visa 
refusals, in order to quantify the results of actions taken by each 
agency against overstays from fiscal year 2005 through fiscal year 
2010.[Footnote 75] We assessed the reliability of the data provided by 
CBP and the State Department by interviewing agency officials who are 
familiar with the data systems and the processes used to collect, 
record, and analyze the data. We determined that the data were 
sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our report. 

To determine the extent to which DHS identifies overstays and shares 
overstay information among its components and with federal, state, and 
local agencies, we analyzed the processes DHS uses to (1) evaluate 
suspected overstay records, (2) collect nonimmigrant arrival and 
departure information, and (3) share information on overstays among 
its component entities and with other federal, state, and local 
agencies.[Footnote 76] As part of our effort to evaluate these 
processes, we compared the processes established by DHS to criteria in 
Standards for Internal Control in the Federal Government.[Footnote 77] 
Furthermore, we reviewed US-VISIT and CTCEU program documentation--
such as standard operating procedures and guidelines for evaluating 
overstay records--and analyzed data on the number of overstays 
identified and overstay leads processed by US-VISIT from fiscal years 
2005 through 2010 and by CTCEU from fiscal years 2004 through 
2010.[Footnote 78] We assessed the reliability of the data provided by 
US-VISIT and CTCEU by reviewing documentation on the data systems' 
controls and specifications, and interviewing US-VISIT and CTCEU 
officials who are familiar with the data systems. We determined that 
the data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of our report. 

Further, we interviewed officials from US-VISIT, CTCEU, and the DHS 
Office of Immigration Statistics about the processes and systems used 
to analyze nonimmigrant arrival and departure information and other 
immigration records for the purpose of identifying overstays. We also 
interviewed officials at CBP Office of Field Operations headquarters 
and conducted site visits to three land POEs (located in Blaine, 
Washington; San Ysidro, California; and Otay Mesa, California), four 
sea POEs (located in Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles/Long Beach, 
California; Miami, Florida; and Newark, New Jersey/New York, New 
York), and five air POEs (located in Seattle, Washington; Los Angeles, 
California; Miami, Florida; Newark, New Jersey; and New York, New 
York) in order to observe, and obtain officials' views on, the 
processes and systems used by CBP to inspect passengers and collect 
nonimmigrant arrival and departure information. We selected these 
locations based on (1) the presence of multiple types of POEs (land, 
sea, or air) in close proximity to each other; (2) the locations being 
geographically dispersed to include POEs on the eastern and western 
coasts, as well as on the northern and southern land borders; and (3) 
the locations being in close proximity to ICE Homeland Security 
Investigations field offices we visited. Additionally, to assess DHS's 
efforts to share overstay information, we reviewed program 
documentation from US-VISIT, ICE, and USCIS about applicable 
information sharing activities and interviewed officials from 
different agencies involved in sharing or receiving overstay 
information about the results of these activities. In particular, we 
interviewed officials from US-VISIT, ICE, and USCIS to obtain the 
perspective of agencies responsible for sharing overstay-related 
information. Likewise, we also interviewed State Department officials 
from the Bureau of Consular Affairs and CBP officials from the Office 
of Field Operations headquarters and at the POEs we visited to obtain 
the view of agencies responsible for using the shared information to 
take enforcement action against out-of-country overstays. Although we 
cannot generalize the information obtained during the site visits to 
the experience of CBP officials at all POEs, these visits provided us 
with valuable perspectives on the mechanisms DHS uses to share 
information about overstays and the processes CBP uses to inspect 
travelers and collect nonimmigrant information at POEs. 

We conducted this performance audit from February 2010 through April 
2011, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing 
standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit 
to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable 
basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 
We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for 
our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. 

[End of section] 

Appendix II: Department of Homeland Security Identification of 
Overstays: 

The United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology 
Program (US-VISIT) is the primary Department of Homeland Security 
(DHS) entity responsible for identifying visa and Visa Waiver Program 
(VWP) nonimmigrant overstays.[Footnote 79] As of November 2010, US-
VISIT had 42 government positions and 76 contractor positions 
responsible for identifying nonimmigrant overstays based on 
nonimmigrants' arrival and departure information collected by DHS's 
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at ports of entry (POE) and 
contained in the Arrival and Departure Information System database, a 
repository of biometric and biographic information maintained by US-
VISIT. Using this database, US-VISIT identifies both in-country and 
out-of-country overstays. 

US-VISIT Identification of In-Country Overstays: 

To identify in-country overstays, US-VISIT first uses the Arrival and 
Departure Information System to generate an automated report that 
identifies nonimmigrants whose period of authorized admission has 
elapsed but for whom there is no departure record in the Arrival and 
Departure Information System. US-VISIT conducts automated and manual 
searches of 13 databases for information indicating that any of the 
remaining suspected overstays have left the country, have been granted 
an adjustment of status, or have a legitimate reason for staying 
longer than their authorized periods of admission (e.g., if the person 
has been granted asylum status). All suspected overstay leads that do 
not have records indicating that the suspected overstays have left the 
country or that indicate that they otherwise may remain in the country 
due to, for example, a change in status, are sent to the ICE 
Counterterrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU) for further 
verification. US-VISIT cannot conclusively confirm that the leads it 
provides to ICE are overstays because some information in the various 
databases it searches may be incorrect, out-of-date, or missing. To 
positively identify overstays, ICE must conduct further review and 
investigations. 

As shown in table 5, from fiscal years 2005 through 2010, US-VISIT 
analyzed over 5 million leads and sent over 79,000 leads to CTCEU for 
further review. 

Table 5: Number of Records Processed and Identified as Potential 
Overstays from Fiscal Years 2005-2010: 

Fiscal year: 2005; 
Number of records processed (rounded to the nearest 100): 67,600; 
Number of records identified as potential overstays and sent to CTCEU 
(rounded to the nearest 100): 1,400. 

Fiscal year: 2006; 
Number of records processed (rounded to the nearest 100): 649,500; 
Number of records identified as potential overstays and sent to CTCEU 
(rounded to the nearest 100): 4,200. 

Fiscal year: 2007; 
Number of records processed (rounded to the nearest 100): 733,300; 
Number of records identified as potential overstays and sent to CTCEU 
(rounded to the nearest 100): 12,900. 

Fiscal year: 2008; 
Number of records processed (rounded to the nearest 100): 2,054,300; 
Number of records identified as potential overstays and sent to CTCEU 
(rounded to the nearest 100): 14,200. 

Fiscal year: 2009; 
Number of records processed (rounded to the nearest 100): 620,900; 
Number of records identified as potential overstays and sent to CTCEU 
(rounded to the nearest 100): 16,400. 

Fiscal year: 2010; 
Number of records processed (rounded to the nearest 100): 1,236,400; 
Number of records identified as potential overstays and sent to CTCEU 
(rounded to the nearest 100): 30,400. 

Fiscal year: Total; 
Number of records processed (rounded to the nearest 100): 5,362,000; 
Number of records identified as potential overstays and sent to CTCEU 
(rounded to the nearest 100): 79,500. 

Source: US-VISIT information from the TRAC database. 

[End of table] 

US-VISIT Identification of Out-of-Country Overstays: 

To identify out-of-country overstays, US-VISIT conducts manual and 
automated analyses similar to the processes for identifying in-country 
overstays, as shown in figure 8. 

Figure 8: US-VISIT Process for Identifying Out-of-Country Overstays: 

[Refer to PDF for image: illustration] 

Automated Identification: 
* VWP travelers with 7 or more overstay days; 
* Nonimmigrant visa holders with more than 90 overstay days[A]; 

and: 

Exhausted In-country Leads: 
In-country leads with more than 90 overstay days exhausted by CTCEU: 

Leads to: 

Manual Search by Analyst: Uses process generally similar to that for 
in-country overstays to search for evidence that traveler is not 
inadmissible: 

Evidence found: Record Closed. 

No evidence found: Supervisory Review. 

Passes review: 
Lookout Creation: 
* Biographic; 
* Biometric. 

Lookout Used to Assist: 
1. CBP officers if the overstay attempts to reenter the United States 
at a POE. 
2. State Department officers if the overstay applies for a visa. 

Lookout Results Tracked. 

Source: GAO analysis of US-VISIT standard operating procedure manual. 

[A] Nonimmigrant visa holders include those traveling on visas for 
business, pleasure, or medical treatment. 

[End of figure] 

Generally, the Arrival and Departure Information System identifies 
potential out-of-country overstays and then US-VISIT analysts verify 
the status of the suspected overstays through checking information in 
various databases. If through this verification process an analyst 
determines that a suspected overstay's actual departure date exceeds 
his or her authorized departure date by more than 90 days for 
nonimmigrant visa holders or by 7 or more days for nonimmigrants 
traveling under the VWP, the analyst creates an electronic lookout on 
the nonimmigrant's record to notify federal officials that he or she 
previously overstayed.[Footnote 80] CBP officers use the lookout to 
help determine whether the nonimmigrant is eligible for readmission to 
the United States, and State Department consular officials use this 
information to help determine whether the nonimmigrant is eligible for 
a future visa. From fiscal years 2005 through 2010, US-VISIT created 
lookouts for about 53,000 suspected of-out-country overstays. 

CTCEU Identification of In-Country Overstay Leads: 

CTCEU is responsible for identifying and validating overstay leads to 
be investigated by the ICE Homeland Security Investigations field 
offices. At the beginning of fiscal year 2011, CTCEU had 50 contract 
analyst and 17 government, including supervisory, positions dedicated 
to identifying leads. CTCEU conducts analysis subsequent to that 
performed by US-VISIT to identify additional in-country overstays and 
verify overstay leads provided US-VISIT. Specifically, CTCEU analyzes 
(1) in-country visa overstay leads provided by US-VISIT, (2) in-
country VWP overstay leads provided by US-VISIT, (3) out-of-status 
students identified in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information 
System, and (4) overstay leads based on data collected from the 
National Security Entry-Exit Registration System. CTCEU analysts 
compare records from these four sources against records in other 
databases that contain information on, for example, nonimmigrants' 
applications to change status, to determine whether nonimmigrants have 
overstayed and are likely still present in the United States. 
Specifically, CTCEU runs 28 different queries in 15 databases to 
identify information pertaining to leads. These databases include the 
same ones that US-VISIT reviews to identify any newly updated 
information as well as additional databases. During this process, 
CTCEU removes records of nonimmigrants that have either left the 
country or changed their status, identifies nonpriority leads for 
processing by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, and sends leads 
that do not have a viable address to contractors to continually 
monitor for new address information. CTCEU assigns overstay leads 
deemed to be valid and of high priority to ICE field office agents 
within their geographical area of responsibility for mandatory 
investigation. 

From fiscal years 2004 through 2010, CTCEU processed over 1,373,000 
leads and sent over 38,000 leads to field offices for investigation. 
Table 6 provides information related to the overstay leads that CTCEU 
has processed from fiscal years 2004 through 2010. 

Table 6: CTCEU Processing of In-Country Overstay Leads from Fiscal 
Years 2004-2010: 

Status of leads: Leads imported; 
2004: 261,600; 
2005: 198,600; 
2006: 168,500; 
2007: 197,300; 
2008: 155,600; 
2009: 198,300; 
2010: 193,300; 
Total: 1,373,200. 

Status of leads: Closed leads; 
2004: 239,500; 
2005: 180,900; 
2006: 148,200; 
2007: 166,400; 
2008: 104,600; 
2009: 101,100; 
2010: 103,900; 
Total: 1,044,600. 

Status of leads: Nonpriority leads sent to Enforcement and Removal 
Operations; 
2004: 13,900; 
2005: 13,000; 
2006: 15,800; 
2007: 25,100; 
2008: 46,000; 
2009: 85,600; 
2010: 79,700; 
Total: 279,100. 

Status of leads: Viable leads assigned to field offices for 
investigation; 
2004: 7,600; 
2005: 4,600; 
2006: 4,300; 
2007: 5,700; 
2008: 5,000; 
2009: 6,100; 
2010: 5,400; 
Total: 38,700. 

Status of leads: Nonviable leads sent to contractor for continual 
monitoring; 
2004: 700; 
2005: 300; 
2006: 300; 
2007: 200; 
2008: 100; 
2009: 6,000; 
2010: 4,900; 
Total: 12,500. 

Source: CTCEU LeadTrac data on overstay leads. 

[End of table] 

[End of section] 

Appendix III: Comments from the Department of Homeland Security: 

U.S Department et Homeland Security: 
Washington, DC 20528: 

April 11, 2011: 

Richard N. Stana: 
Director, Homeland Security and Justice: 
U.S. Government Accountability Office: 
441 G Street, NW: 
Washington, DC 20548: 

Re: Comments to Draft Report, GAO-11-411, "Overstay Enforcement:
Additional Mechanisms for Collecting, Assessing, and Sharing Data Could
Strengthen DHS's Efforts but Would Have Costs" 

Dear Mr. Stana: 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Components with the greatest 
responsibility for overstay enforcement are U.S. Immigration and 
Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 
and National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD). DHS 
appreciates the opportunity to review and provide comments to the 
recommendations in your report on overstay enforcement. It is 
important to note that this report focuses on both in the 
identification and enforcement of visa overstays. The report 
classifies overstays for non-immigrants who exceed their term of 
admission (such as a visitor) and those who violate their status (such 
as a student). This report is comprehensive and provides a good 
working knowledge about the non-immigrant visa process. ICE, CPB, and 
NPPD will work individually and collectively to resolve the issues 
identified in the report. 

The purpose of this audit was to determine the extent to which DHS 
takes action to address Overstays and shares overstay information 
among the Components responsible for border security and immigration 
enforcement. In the absence of a biometric entry and exit system, DHS 
uses various methods to identify overstays, primarily biographic data 
and share overstay information. 

The report illustrates how DHS actions to address enforcement of the 
estimated overstay population could be enhanced by improved planning 
and information sharing. We have addressed each recommendation 
separately below. 

To help ICE's execution of overstay enforcement efforts and improve 
assessment of ICE programs that identify and address overstays and 
allow program adjustments, if necessary, the U.S. Government 
Accountability Office (GAO) recommended that the Assistant Secretary for
Immigration and Customs Enforcement take the following three actions: 
Recommendation 1: "Establish a target timeframe for assessing the 
funding and resources ERO would require in order to assume 
responsibility for civil overstay enforcement and use the results of 
that assessment." 

Response: DHS concurs. In June 2010, ICE Director Morton announced his 
intention to transition noncriminal overstays from the Counter 
Terrorism and Criminal Exploitation Unit (CTCEU), which is part of 
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), to ERO. HSI and ERO are in the 
process of planning for this transition. As part of the Fiscal Year 
2013 Resource Allocation Plan, ICE will identify the resources needed 
to execute this transition. 

Recommendation 2: "Develop outcome-based performance measures—or proxy 
measures if program outcomes cannot be captured—and associated targets 
on CTCEU' s progress in preventing terrorists and other criminals from 
exploiting the nation's immigration system." 

Response: DHS concurs. Due to the nature of "pro-active" 
investigations, a performance measure is not currently available to 
capture the success of the CTCEU's ability to discourage or prevent 
terrorist activity in the United States. As previously stated, CTCEU's 
approach to preventing the exploitation of the immigration system is 
one that mirrors the precept of the legal system in that compliance to 
the law is based on deterrence through example. In addition, the
CTCEU prevents exploitation by enacting revisions to immigration 
policy and U.S. Law intended to counter identified vulnerabilities. In 
the meantime, ICE will consult with our national security partners to 
determine if proxy measures can be implemented to satisfy this 
recommendation. 

Recommendation 3: "Develop a performance measure for assessing quality 
of leads CTCEU assigns to ICE field offices for investigations, using 
performance information already collected by CTCEU." 

Response: DHS concurs. Since November 2007, CTCEU has conducted 
quality reviews by sampling 1% of daily leads to correct deficient 
information in the leads it sends to the field and to determine if 
additional training is needed to correct repetitive errors. ICE 
believes that this has contributed to the increase in field arrests 
since its implementation. The report referenced this; however, it also 
suggested that this metric is not sufficient to assess the quality of 
overstay leads. The CTCEU disagrees with this assertion and contends 
that quality control reviews ensure that the field agents have the 
most reliable information available at that time to begin an 
investigation. One of the challenges to developing such a performance 
measure is the fact that CTCEU relies on other Components' information 
to formulate leads. As that information becomes more reliable and 
accurate, so will the effectiveness of CTCEU leads. This report 
accurately stated 77% of CTCEU leads resulted in a finding of 
"departure," "in-status," or "all leads exhausted." Information 
correlating to these findings is derived from DHS databases 
referencing alien departure records, alien application filings, and 
alien self-reported addresses, which are frequently inaccurate and 
unreliable. 

The report correctly stated that a direct correlation could not be 
attributed to enforcement actions by conducting quality reviews. The 
success or outcome of a lead generated by the CTCEU has many factors 
that cannot be accounted for by this program, such as the overstay 
moving without notification, dependence on other agencies to update 
their computer systems, and deficiencies in collected information. 

Recommendation 4: "To increase the completeness of exit information 
available for the purpose of identifying overstays, we recommend that 
the Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection analyze the costs 
and benefits of developing a standard mechanism for collecting
I-84/I-94W forms at land POEs, and develop a standard mechanism to 
collect these forms, to the extent that benefits outweigh the costs." 

Response: DHS concurs. A standardized mechanism to collect I-94 and I-
94W departure information at the land border would be beneficial. CBP 
would like to propose a cost-effective independent evaluation be 
considered as responsive to this recommendation for identifying the 
benefits and risks with associated costs to a standardized land border 
mechanism for the collection of the paper I-94 given the ever-changing 
land border environment. 

Given the different operating environments on the land border, certain 
factors that would challenge the efficient collection of this 
information include multiple entries (commuters), different 
nonimmigrant classifications (students), and the unforeseen results of 
future initiatives (automated I-94). Therefore, it may be premature at 
this time to develop such a standard mechanism for a paper process. 

Operating environments differ greatly from our southern border ports 
to the northern border ports. Standardizing an efficient mechanism for 
northern border ports may not be an efficient mechanism for southern 
border ports, and vice versa. Infrastructure constraints, the lack of 
any outbound inspection capability, and limited resources are also 
significant challenges that impact developing such a mechanism. 

CBP works closely with Canada on preliminary efforts to share certain 
border-crossing data electronically. This effort could have great 
potential in enhancing the CBP I-94 information collection, although 
it is too early to know its true value with respect to the collection 
of I-94 data. Canada currently assists us with the collection of paper 
I-94s upon departure, which is a great benefit that we do not have at 
our southern border ports. 

Another factor that influences the development of such a standardized 
mechanism is an initiative to automate the I-94, eliminating the paper 
form, which will have a significant impact on exit control and the 
collection of I-94 data. With this project in its early stages, it is 
difficult to foresee how this may be best integrated into such a 
mechanism. 

Recommendation 5: "To improve information sharing in support of 
efforts to identify and take enforcement action against overstays, we 
recommend that the Secretary of Homeland Security direct the 
Commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, the Undersecretary of 
the National Protection and Programs Directorate, and the Assistant 
Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to assess the costs 
and benefits of creating biometric and biographic lookouts for (1) out-
of-country overstays of 90 days or less who entered the country using 
nonimmigrant business and pleasure visas, and (2) in-country overstay 
leads sent to ERO, and create these lookouts, to the extent that the 
benefits of doing so outweigh the costs." 

Response: DHS concurs. ICE, CBP, and NPPD will work together to assess 
the costs and benefits of creating biometric and biographic lookouts 
for these categories of overstay. This will involve a determination of 
the planning and system development and implementation costs as 
compared to the benefit (value-added) these costs may generate. CBP 
does not anticipate any cost associated with the analysis and creation 
of these lookouts as this function is currently performed by NPPD and 
ICE. Lookout creation on overstays of less than 90 days would assist
CBP in identifying those that may have violated their terms of prior 
admission. These lookouts could also be used for analysis in 
determining whether an individual requires additional screening, 
including whether an alien's visa is void pursuant to INA 222(g). The 
results of this assessment will be used to determine the feasibility 
of additional program costs. 

DHS concurs with the five GAO recommendations. DHS is taking the 
necessary actions to address each recommendation. Thank you for the 
opportunity to comment on this Draft Report. We look forward to 
working with you on future Homeland Security issues. 

Sincerely, 

Signed by: 

Jim H. Crumpacker: 
Director: 
Departmental GAO/OIG Liaison Office: 

[End of section] 

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments: 

GAO Contact: 

Richard M. Stana, (202) 512-8777 or stanar@gao.gov: 

Staff Acknowledgments: 

In addition to the contact named above, Rebecca Gambler, Assistant 
Director, and Taylor Matheson, analyst-in-charge, managed this 
assignment. Jeremy Manion, Zane Seals, and Joshua Wiener made 
significant contributions to this work. Amanda Miller assisted with 
design and methodology, and Frances Cook provided legal support. 
Jessica Orr, Robert Robinson, Debra Sebastian, Sylvia Bascope, Richard 
Eiserman, Frederick Lyles, Katherine Trenholme, and Yee Wong assisted 
with report preparation. 

[End of section] 

Footnotes: 

[1] Pew Hispanic Center, Modes of Entry for the Unauthorized Migrant 
Population (Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2006). 

[2] Visitors who are allowed to seek admission without a visa include 
citizens of Canada and the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda (and 
certain residents of other adjacent islands, such as the Bahamas) 
under certain circumstances, as well as Visa Waiver Program 
participants. This program allows nationals from certain countries to 
apply for admission to the United States as temporary visitors for 
business or pleasure without first obtaining a visa from a U.S. 
consulate abroad. In order to qualify for the Visa Waiver Program, a 
country must meet various requirements, such as entering into 
agreement with the United States to report lost or stolen passports 
within a strict time limit and in a manner specified in the agreement. 
Currently, 36 countries participate in the Visa Waiver Program: 
Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brunei, Czech Republic, Denmark, 
Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, 
Italy, Japan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, 
Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, 
Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, 
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. We will be reporting on the 
status of the Visa Waiver Program later this year. 

[3] GAO, Visa Waiver Program: Limitations with Department of Homeland 
Security's Plan to Verify Departure of Foreign Nationals, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-458T] (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 28, 
2008). 

[4] In this report we include out of status students--student visa 
holders who fail to meet certain requirements, such as enrolling in a 
qualified education program--in our definition of overstays. 

[5] For more information on these convictions, see Department of 
Justice, National Security Division Statistics on Unsealed 
International Terrorism and Terrorism-Related Convictions (Washington, 
D.C.: March 2010). 

[6] We analyzed the results of CTCEU overstay investigations starting 
in fiscal year 2004 because CTCEU, formerly called the Compliance 
Enforcement Unit, was established by ICE in 2003 and fiscal year 2004 
is the first year for which complete data are available. We obtained 
data on ICE's overstay investigative work hours from fiscal years 2006 
through 2010 in order to focus our analysis on a 5-year period. 

[7] See, for example, GAO, Standards for Internal Control in the 
Federal Government, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] (Washington, D.C.: 
Nov. 1, 1999); and the Project Management Institute's The Standard for 
Program Management © (2006). 

[8] A POE is a location by which individuals and merchandise may seek 
legal entry into the United States. There are 327 air, sea, and land 
POEs in the United States. 

[9] We analyzed CBP and State Department data from fiscal years 2005 
through 2010 because fiscal year 2005 is the first year for which 
complete CBP data are available. 

[10] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]. We 
analyzed these data from US-VISIT starting in fiscal year 2005 and 
from CTCEU starting in fiscal year 2004 because those are the first 
years for which US-VISIT and CTCEU have complete data. 

[11] During the course of our review we determined that state and 
local law enforcement actions against overstays were limited and 
consequently would not be a primary focus of this report. 

[12] Temporary visitors to the United States generally are referred to 
as "nonimmigrants." For a listing and descriptions of nonimmigrant 
categories, see 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(15); see also 8 C.F.R. § 
214.1(a)(1)-(2). 

[13] Nonimmigrants eligible for the VWP that seek admission to the 
United States at a land POE do not apply online to establish 
eligibility. 

[14] In certain circumstances citizens of Canada and the British 
Overseas Territory of Bermuda (and certain residents of other adjacent 
islands, such as the Bahamas) traveling to the United States as 
nonimmigrants do not require a visa. See 22 C.F.R. § 41.2(a)-(f). 

[15] CBP is in the process of automating the I-94W so that it will be 
a paperless process. As of February 2011, the I-94W process was 
automated for travelers who apply online to establish their 
eligibility to travel under the VWP at all airports and most seaports. 
The I-94W process has not yet been automated at land POEs and a paper-
based I-94W process is used. In addition to collecting individual 
information via the I-94/I94W process, CBP requires air and sea 
carriers to provide passenger manifest information for passengers 
entering and exiting the United States. 

[16] Although overstays are sometimes referred to as visa overstays, 
we do not use that term in this report for two reasons. First, many 
visitors are allowed to seek admission to the United States without 
visas and to remain for specific periods, which they may overstay, 
such as visitors who enter using the VWP. Second, nonimmigrants can 
overstay an authorized period of admission set by a CBP officer at the 
border even though that authorized period may be shorter than the 
period of the visitors' visas. For example, although the State 
Department may issue nonimmigrants visas that are valid for 6 months, 
CBP inspectors might issue them only a 6-week period of admission when 
they enter the United States. In such instances, if the nonimmigrants 
remain in the United States for 7 weeks they have overstayed their 
authorized periods of admission, and thus overstayed, even though 
their visas have not expired. 

[17] 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(9)(B)(i), (ii). 

[18] 8 U.S.C. § 1365a. 

[19] Pub. L. No. 104-208, div. C, § 110, 110 Stat. 3009-546, 3009-558 
to 59. 

[20] 8 U.S.C. § 1365b. 

[21] GAO, Homeland Security: U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status 
Program's Longstanding Lack of Strategic Direction and Management 
Controls Needs to Be Addressed, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1065 (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 31, 
2007). 

[22] GAO, Homeland Security: Key US-VISIT Components at Varying Stages 
of Completion, but Integrated and Reliable Schedule Needed, GAO-10-13 
(Washington, D.C.: Nov. 19, 2009); [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-1065]; and Homeland Security: First 
Phase of Visitor and Immigration Status Program Operating, but 
Improvements Needed, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-04-586] (Washington, D.C.: May 11, 
2004). 

[23] GAO, Border Security: US-VISIT Program Faces, Strategic, 
Operational, and Technological Challenges at Land Ports of Entry, 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-07-248] (Washington, D.C.: 
Dec. 6, 2006). 

[24] 73 Fed. Reg. 22,065 (Apr. 24, 2008). 

[25] Pub. L. No. 110-329, 122 Stat. 3574, 3668-70 (2008). 

[26] GAO, Homeland Security: US-VISIT Pilot Evaluations Offer Limited 
Understanding of Air Exit Options, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-860] (Washington, D.C.: Aug. 10, 
2010). 

[27] CTCEU also investigates suspected VWP overstays, out-of-status 
students and National Security Entry-Exit Registration System 
violators. For the purpose of this discussion, these investigations 
are referred to collectively as "overstay" investigations. 

[28] ICE is unable to provide data on the number of overstays arrested 
by CTCEU who were detained or deported due to the configuration of its 
information systems. While CTCEU tracks overstay arrests, prior to 
fiscal year 2011 it did not track the outcomes of overstay cases 
following arrest because ERO, not CTCEU, is responsible for the 
detention and deportation of overstays. While ERO tracks the detention 
and deportation of individuals by the section of law they violate, 
overstays fall under a section of law that includes other nonimmigrant 
violations, and thus overstay cases cannot be easily identified. CTCEU 
officials reported that the office is planning to modify its database 
in order to track these data going back to fiscal year 2010. In 
addition, prior to fiscal year 2011, CTCEU did not track how many of 
its investigations resulted in criminal versus non-criminal arrests, 
and therefore, cannot quantify how many of the approximately 8,100 
overstay arrests it made based on cases initiated in fiscal year 2004 
through 2010 were criminal or civil (i.e., administrative) arrests. 
The most recent estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center approximated 
that, in 2006, out of an unauthorized resident alien population of 
11.5 million to 12 million in the United States, about 4 million to 
5.5 million were overstays. Pew Hispanic Center, Modes of Entry for 
the Unauthorized Migrant Population (Washington, D.C.: May 22, 2006). 

[29] With regard to the second outcome, that the subject is found to 
be in-status, under certain circumstances, an application for 
extension or change of status can temporarily prevent a visitor's 
presence in the United States from being categorized as unauthorized. 
See Donald Neufeld, Acting Associate Director, Domestic Operations 
Directorate, USCIS, "Consolidation of Guidance Concerning Unlawful 
Presence for Purposes of Sections 212(a)(9)(B)(i) and 
212(a)(9)(C)(i)(I) of the [Immigration and Nationality] Act," 
memorandum, Washington, D.C., May 6, 2009. 

[30] Investigations resulting and not resulting in arrest do not total 
34,700 due to rounding. 

[31] Visitors traveling on nonimmigrant visas are issued a Form I-94 
and visitors from the VWP countries are issued a Form I-94W while in 
transit to or upon their arrival to a United States POE. The Form I-
94/I-94W, among other things, records the date a nonimmigrant's 
authorized period of admission expires and the address where the 
nonimmigrant reports he or she will be staying in the United States. 

[32] In February 2011, the United States announced plans to work with 
Canada on border security and other issues, including working towards 
an integrated United States-Canada entry-exit system. This effort 
would include working towards the exchange of relevant entry 
information in the land environment so that documented entry into one 
country serves to verify exit from the other country. 

[33] DHS Congressional Budget Justification for Fiscal Year 2012. 

[34] DHS did not request funds for this purpose in its fiscal year 
2012 budget request. 

[35] Compliance Enforcement Advisory Panel members include 
representatives from the National Counterterrorism Center, the Federal 
Bureau of Investigation, CBP, the State Department, and the DHS Office 
of Intelligence and Analysis, and other intelligence community 
stakeholders. 

[36] See, for example, GAO, Combating Gangs: Better Coordination and 
Performance Measurement Would Help Clarify Roles of Federal Agencies 
and Strengthen Assessment of Efforts, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-708] (Washington, D.C.: July 24, 
2009); and GAO, Executive Guide: Effectively Implementing the 
Government Performance and Results Act, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/GGD-96-118] (Washington, D.C.: June 
1996). 

[37] OMB Circular A-11 states that output measures describe the level 
of activity that will be provided over a period of time, including a 
description of the characteristics (e.g., timeliness) established as 
standards for the activity. Outputs refer to the internal activities 
of a program (i.e., the products and services delivered). CTCEU's 
mission is to prevent terrorists and other criminals from exploiting 
the nation's immigration system and to expand the resource equities 
within the various intelligence community and federal agencies. As 
CTCEU's efforts to address overstays most closely contribute to its 
mission to prevent terrorists and other criminals from exploiting the 
nation's immigration system, we are focusing on this aspect of its 
mission for the purpose of this discussion. 

[38] Verified leads are leads that CTCEU has determined to be accurate 
and viable by analyzing information from government and commercial 
databases containing information related to immigration status. For 
example, these procedures are intended to verify that an individual 
suspected of overstaying has not departed the country or been granted 
an extension of stay by USCIS. 

[39] GAO, Supply Chain Security: Examinations of High-Risk Cargo at 
Foreign Seaports Have Increased, but Improved Data Collection and 
Performance Measures Are Needed, GAO-08-187 (Washington, D.C.: Jan. 
25, 2008). 

[40] State Department data indicate that a total of about 36.5 million 
nonimmigrant visas and about 2.7 million immigrant visas were issued 
from fiscal year 2005 through 2010. 

[41] Some of these visa refusals were ultimately overcome based on the 
availability of evidence that showed the applicant's ineligibility no 
longer applied, the approval of a waiver, or by other relief as 
provided by law. According to State Department data, from fiscal year 
2005 through 2010, a total of about 4,500 nonimmigrant visa 
application refusals and about 60,800 immigrant visa application 
refusals based on the applicant having been unlawfully present for 
more than 180 days were ultimately overcome. 

[42] According to State Department officials, the State Department 
records the results of adverse actions taken against aliens applying 
for a new visa based on the section of law under which the alien is 
inadmissible. As a result, the State Department is unable to isolate 
the number of visas denied due to applicants having accrued at least 
181 days of unlawful presence by overstaying their authorized periods 
of admission from those that accrued unlawful presence through other 
means (e.g., entering without inspection). Also, since U.S. law does 
not explicitly render aliens that overstayed by 180 days or less 
inadmissible to the country, actions taken against these aliens are 
recorded under other broader grounds of inadmissibility that may apply 
to, but are not limited to, overstays. Consequently, the State 
Department is unable to quantify the number of visas it has denied on 
the basis of applicants having overstayed by 180 days or less. 

[43] CBP data indicates that, in total, about 1.3 million foreign 
nationals were determined to be inadmissible to the United States by 
the CBP Office of Field Operations from fiscal year 2005 through 2010. 
As is the case with the State Department, CBP is unable to isolate and 
quantify the number of aliens it has determined to be inadmissible due 
to the aliens having overstayed by 180 days or less, because actions 
taken against these aliens are recorded under grounds of 
inadmissibility that may apply to, but are not limited to, overstays. 

[44] State Department consular officers regularly conduct targeted 
validation studies to evaluate the results of a sample of their visa 
issuance decisions in various visa categories. The results of these 
studies are used to help refine and improve the consulate's future 
visa issuance decisions, and determining the extent to which 
nonimmigrant visa recipients overstay their authorized period of 
admission in the United States is one factor that is considered in 
these validation studies. In order to conduct these studies, the State 
Department works with US-VISIT to obtain, among other types of 
information, arrival and departure data for the recipients of the 
visas being studied. 

[45] CTCEU also searches for overstays using Internet search engines 
and Web sites such as Bing, Facebook, and Google. 

[46] While the I-94 is a paper document, CBP collects this form and 
manually inputs the departure information into the TECS database, 
after which US-VISIT and CTCEU use the data to determine if 
nonimmigrants have departed the United States. CBP conducts some 
outbound inspections at land POEs to search for illegal bulk cash and 
weapons. For further information, see GAO, Moving Illegal Proceeds: 
Challenges Exist in the Federal Government's Effort to Stem Cross 
Border Currency Smuggling, GAO-11-73 (Washington, D.C.: Oct. 25, 2010). 

[47] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]. 

[48] DHS: Cost-Benefit Analysis Guidebook, Version 2.0 (2006). 

[49] 19 C.F.R. §§ 122.75a(b), 4.64(b). Carriers are to submit the 
electronic departure manifest no later than 60 minutes prior to 
departure for vessels, and for airplanes, either no later than 30 
minutes prior to the securing of the aircraft or no later than the 
securing of the aircraft, depending on the type of electronic 
transmission system used. 

[50] 19 C.F.R. §§ 122.75a(d), 4.64(d). 

[51] 8 U.S.C. § 1187(c)(8). 

[52] GAO, Visa Waiver Program: Actions Are Needed to Improve 
Management of the Expansion Process, and to Assess and Mitigate 
Program Risks, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-967] 
(Washington, D.C.: Sept. 15, 2008). 

[53] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-860]. 

[54] Since the backlogged leads have not undergone review by US-VISIT 
or CTCEU, it can be expected that many of the leads would be closed 
during the automatic and manual review processes performed by these 
agencies and thus may not represent overstays. In addition, any 
nonpriority leads would be forwarded by CTCEU to ERO. 

[55] H.R. Rep. No. 111-157, at 101 (2009). 

[56] 8 U.S.C. § 1376(b). 

[57] 8 U.S.C. § 1187(c)(3)(A), (f). 

[58] There is an exception to this termination provision if the total 
number of nationals from that country who were denied (or withdrew 
their application for) admission or violated the terms of their 
admission was 100 or less. 

[59] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-967]. 

[60] See, for example, GAO, Information Sharing: Practices That Can 
Benefit Critical Infrastructure Protection, GAO-02-24 (Washington, 
D.C.: Oct. 15, 2001); Information Sharing: Federal Agencies Are 
Sharing Border and Terrorism Information with Local and Tribal Law 
Enforcement Agencies, but Additional Efforts Are Needed, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-41] (Washington, D.C.: Dec. 18, 
2009); Information Sharing: DHS Could Better Define How It Plans to 
Meet Its State and Local Mission and Improve Performance 
Accountability, [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-223] 
(Washington, D.C.: Dec. 16, 2010); and Department of Homeland 
Security, Department of Homeland Security Information Sharing Strategy 
(Washington, D.C., 2008). 

[61] US-VISIT did not begin to process out-of-country overstay leads 
until August 2005. As a result, there are no data available for 
actions taken by the Department of State and CBP based on US-VISIT 
overstay lookouts in fiscal years 2004 or 2005. 

[62] See [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-02-24], 
[hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-41], [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-223], and [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]. 

[63] See Department of Homeland Security, Department of Homeland 
Security Information Sharing Strategy (Washington, D.C., 2008); and 
the DHS Secretary's February 1, 2007, Memorandum to All Department of 
Homeland Security Components titled "DHS Policy for Internal 
Information Exchange and Sharing." 

[64] US-VISIT also creates lookouts for suspected out-of-country 
overstays who were admitted to the United States under the VWP and 
overstayed by 7 or more days. 

[65] Based on the results of US-VISIT's automated and manual review of 
other types of overstay records--in which approximately 61 percent of 
the records received are subsequently closed without being forwarded 
to ICE or having a lookout created--it can be expected that some of 
the 570 short-term overstay records would also be closed without 
having a lookout created were they to undergo the standard automated 
and manual review processes US-VISIT employs for other overstay 
records. 

[66] CTCEU sent about 279,000 nonpriority leads to ERO from fiscal 
year 2004 through fiscal year 2010. Additionally, US-VISIT's backlog 
of unreviewed nonpriority leads also contains an unknown number of 
leads that, if they were to be reviewed and deemed to be valid, would 
potentially be forwarded to ERO in the same manner as other 
nonpriority leads. 

[67] Examples of legitimate reasons that may cause a foreign traveler 
to overstay could include situations such as the recent volcanic 
eruption in Iceland that grounded many international flights. 

[68] The Computer-Linked Application Information Management System 3 
database supports the adjudication of all USCIS immigration benefits 
other than naturalization and humanitarian immigration benefits 
(refugees, asylees, and parolees). The Central Index System database 
serves as a DHS-wide index used to track the location of paper case 
files (know as Alien Files or A-Files). Although the Central Index 
System also maintains some immigration status information about 
individuals, the Computer-Linked Application Information Management 
System 3 contains additional information about particular cases. 

[69] Deferred inspections are used when an immediate decision 
concerning the immigration status of an arriving alien cannot be made 
at the POE and there is reason to believe that, if the alien is 
allowed to enter the United States and inspected at a later date, the 
alien can overcome a finding of inadmissibility (e.g., based on a 
suspected overstay violation) with the provision of additional 
information or documentation that is not available at the time and 
place of the initial examination. 

[70] During our site visit to the Newark, New Jersey Homeland Security 
Investigations field office, we also conducted a separate interview 
with officials from the ERO field office located nearby. 

[71] We selected this period because CTCEU, formerly called the 
Compliance Enforcement Unit, was established by ICE in 2003 and fiscal 
year 2004 is the first year for which completed overstay 
investigations data are available. 

[72] See, for example, [hyperlink, 
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1] and the Project 
Management Institute's The Standard for Program Management © (2006). 

[73] We analyzed the results of CTCEU overstay investigations starting 
in fiscal year 2004 because it is the first year for which complete 
data are available. 

[74] We obtained data on ICE's overstay investigative work hours from 
fiscal years 2006 through 2010 in order to focus our analysis on a 5- 
year period. 

[75] We analyzed CBP and State Department data from fiscal years 2005 
through 2010 because fiscal year 2005 is the first year for which 
complete CBP data are available. 

[76] During the course of our review we determined that state and 
local law enforcement actions against overstays were limited and 
consequently would not be a primary focus of this report. 

[77] [hyperlink, http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO/AIMD-00-21.3.1]. 

[78] We analyzed these data from US-VISIT starting in fiscal year 2005 
and from CTCEU starting in fiscal year 2004 because those are the 
first years for which US-VISIT and CTCEU have complete data. 

[79] US-VISIT is also the primary source for developing overstay rate 
information for countries, including those participating in the VWP. 
However, the Office of Immigration Statistics within DHS is 
responsible for releasing this information. 

[80] US-VISIT does not process records for nonimmigrant visa holders 
who are suspected of overstaying by less than 90 days. 

[End of section] 

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