Biden Policy, Low Resources Led to Limited Arrests in High-Risk Visa Overstays: DHS

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal watchdog has released a report stating that limited resources and a Biden administration policy led to limited enforcement action against foreign nationals—including thousands of possibly dangerous individuals—who illegally stayed in the United States past their allowed period.

“The degree of the Biden Administration’s dereliction of duty, which needlessly put American lives at risk, is staggering and enraging,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said in an Oct. 5 news release.

The department’s Office of Inspector General found that from fiscal years 2021 to 2024, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) received more than 3 million leads about possible alien overstays. While 104,049 were classified as potential threats to national security and the American public, only 496 investigations were launched, and eight foreign nationals were arrested.

As a result of the “few” enforcement actions, “foreign nationals who potentially posed threats to the United States remained at large despite their illegal status,” the inspector general report read.

The report, released on Sept. 29, said ICE “did not have sufficient resources to pursue all visa overstays” and President Joe Biden’s administration restricted how ICE could direct its “limited resources.”

A September 2021 memo issued by then DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas reshaped how immigration authorities target foreign nationals for enforcement action.

The memo stated aliens should be targeted only if they are suspected of engaging in terrorism or espionage, or have committed a serious criminal offense and pose a threat to national security, public safety, or border security.

For foreign nationals remaining in the United States past their permitted time, ICE assigns them a rank: from “potentially posing the highest threat to national security or public safety as Priority 1, then assigns Priority 2–9 ratings to progressively less dangerous overstays.” A ranking of 10 would be “non-priority.”

A Priority 1 classification falls under the guidelines in Mayorkas’s memo for which foreign nationals can be targeted.

Out of 1,769 Priority 1 leads on overstaying aliens, 84 investigations were launched with only two arrests made.

In President Donald Trump’s first week back at the White House last year, he signed an executive order that canceled Mayorkas’s memo, effectively allowing ICE to pursue overstays with any rating.

Aside from limited resources and the previous Mayorkas policy, the inspector general report found poor record-keeping also hindered the enforcement actions that did take place under the Biden administration.

Nearly 200 Priority 1 overstaying foreign nationals had insufficient address information. ICE officials noted in the report that many addresses of aliens were temporary locations such as resorts and hotels.

The remaining “non-priority” leads, which amounted to slightly more than 3 million, were sent to ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations for monitoring, potential investigation, and action.

Enforcement and Removal Operations investigated five leads it found to be a threat to public safety, resulting in two arrests.

“As if the wide-open borders weren’t enough, a new [Office of Inspector General] report reveals that the Biden-era ICE failed to act on more than 3 million leads,” Mullin said.

In the news release, Homeland Security included examples of foreign nationals who allegedly committed violent crimes after overstaying their authorized periods in the United States.

A man from the UK, John Young Cotter Johnstone, entered the United States in 2021 and overstayed his visa after it expired in February 2022. He was arrested in May 2026 in Nevada and charged with four counts of torturing animals at a shelter he worked at.

The Office of Inspector General offered one recommendation to ICE: Develop and deploy a plan to increase investigations against foreign nationals who illegally overstay their authorized welcome period to the United States, including those deemed “Priority 1” risks.

In responding to the recommendation, an ICE official noted the timing of the report as it’s now approaching two years since the review period on the prior administration.

Policies have changed under the Trump administration, the ICE official wrote.

“ICE’s current operational priorities, resource posture, and enforcement approach … prioritizes vetting and screening of foreign nationals seeking entry or residing in the United States,” the correspondence read.