As the Biden administration struggled to cope with an influx of immigrants at the United States' southern border with Mexico, and new temporary arrivals through the country's airports, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was unable to pursue most of its visa overstay targets it categorized as high-risk, a new report released Thursday said. The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) said that between 2021 and late 2024, ICE could not locate most of the nearly 105,000 potential national security or public safety concerns known as Priority 1 overstays, arresting just eight immigrants.
ICE took "limited action" on the 3 million-plus reports of nonimmigrant visa overstays it received during that period, partly because of a directive from then-President Joe Biden's Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas. "As a result, foreign nationals who potentially posed threats to the United States remained at large despite their illegal status," the report read. The report's release comes during a very different time at DHS, with the department actively pursuing those who have overstayed their visas, including arresting those seeking adjustment of status or new visas.
"This report is disturbing and validates the need for the much more vigorous interior enforcement by ICE that is happening under Trump, and also the overhaul of the visa vetting process that has been implemented," Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, told Newsweek. "The Biden-Mayorkas policies were irresponsible and put Americans at risk. They should have allowed ICE to prioritize far more of these cases." Newsweek reached out to DHS to ask what had changed in the years since the report's focus and whether it had been able to locate the individuals ICE had not been able to find previously.
Mayorkas is currently a visiting fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, where he is holding a study group on homeland security policy. Newsweek reached out to the school seeking comment from the former secretary. Between October 2020 and September 2024, ICE received 3,145,375 visa overstay leads, the OIG said and categorized about 3 percent as potential national security or public safety threats.
Of those 104,049 cases, the agency deemed 21,895 viable for investigation, leading to eight arrests. The OIG said Mayorkas' memo in September 2021 instructing ICE to target only Priority 1 individuals meant a far smaller group was investigated and arrested. Priority 1 classification does not necessarily mean an immigrant has a criminal record, but it could mean they have been flagged as a potential national security risk by the U.S. or a foreign government.
"When ICE did attempt to pursue action on a lead, it encountered challenges verifying addresses and locating the foreign nationals present in the United States," the report said. "Further, ICE did not have sufficient resources to pursue all overstay leads." The report outlines some examples of those high-priority targets, including a Honduran national who was admitted to the U.S. in 2022 on a B-2 tourist visa, who was later charged with rape, assault, and sexual offenses in Maryland. His visa then expired in January 2023, and federal agents detained him in September that year.
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