Does America Need A Northern Border Wall?

Keeping track of people legally entering and leaving the United States is a formidable task. Nevertheless, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has released figures on people who overstay their visas and other legal forms of admissions. Total overstays for 2016 stood at close to 740,000 people, of which up to 630,000 were suspected to still be in the country.

You will find more statistics at Statista

As Statista"s Dyfed Loesche notes, Canadians and Mexicans are the biggest groups of people with non-immigrant admissions to the United States that overstayed their lawfully authorized time period. However, the DHS only counts in arrivals and departures by sea and air as stated in its report.

Unlike all other countries, the overwhelming majority of visitors from Canada or Mexico enter the United States by land. "The collection of departure information in the land environment is more difficult than in the air and sea", the DHS writes. While many Canadians or Mexicans could fly in ore arrive by boat they might leave the U.S. across the land border.

So, there"s always a degree of uncertainty in the data.

While Canada and Mexico are the United States" direct neighbors the figures for the rest of the countries shown in the below above probably are more accurate. This overview includes countries that are taking part in the so-called visa waiver program (VWP) and those who don’t. It only shows data for leisure and business visas, not for students.

The DHS admits that there is a level of uncertainty in how accurate these numbers are and calls them a snapshot. For the air and sea arrivals and departures the department relies on data that commercial and private carriers need to provide.

Also, the figures include suspected in-country and out-of-country overstays. This means that some of the people who initially overstayed might have already left.

All of which raises the question - does America need a northern border wall also?

Trump Administration Flip-Flops: Green Card Holders Are Not Affected By Immigration Ban

Following yesterday"s statement from a Department of Homeland Security official that "[the order] will bar green card holders", it appears The White House has shifted its view. During an interview of NBC"s "Meet The Press", White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus flip-flopped that "as far as green card holders moving forward, [the order] doesn"t affect them."

As The Hill reports, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Sunday said the president"s executive order barring refugees and people from seven majority-Muslim nations does not affect green card holders.

"We didn"t overrule the Department of Homeland Security, as far as green card holders moving forward, it doesn"t affect them," Priebus said on NBC"s "Meet The Press."

But Priebus noted if a person is traveling back and forth to one of the seven countries included in that order, that person is likely to be "subjected temporarily with more questioning until a better program is put in place."

"We don"t want people that are traveling back and forth to one of these seven countries that harbor terrorists to be traveling freely back and forth between the United States and those countries," he said.

When pressed further on whether the order impacts green card holders, though, Priebus appeared to reverse himself, saying, "Well, of course it does."

"If you"re traveling back and forth, you"re going to be subjected to further screening," he said.

Furthermore, Priebus also said more countries could be added to the list already included in the president"s executive order.

"Perhaps other countries needed to be added to an executive order going forward," he said.

"But in order to do this in a way that was expeditious, in a way that would pass muster quickly, we used the 7 countries that have already been codified and identified."

As we noted yesterday, of the seven countries that are on the banned list, we note that the United States is actvely bombing five of them.