The trump administration has ordered all its embassies worldwide to intensify screening measures for new visa applicants who want to enter the U.S. The new rules were released by the U.S State Department late last week. The new move will give consular officials authority to add stricter criteria on visa applicants such as asking applicants where they have lived and worked over the past fifteen years, information about their families, their travel history, and their social media activities and use in the last five years.
Embassies were however directed not to discriminate applicants based on their ethnicity, nationality, race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
The new measures are aimed at keeping out those who want to enter the U.S illegally through overstays as well as prevent potential terrorists from entering the country. Trump's previous travel bans such as banning people from six majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S amounted to religious profiling. His new measures might isolate the United States from the rest of the world as fewer people are likely to get into the country. Other measures such as banning refugees from entering the U.S for 120 days was termed as inhuman.
Visa rejection and overstay rates statistics
The US State Department publishes a yearly report on the number of visa rejection rates per year as well as visa overstay for the class B visa for those that wish to enter the country on temporary stays such as tourism, visits and for business.
Last year, the top five countries that had the highest refusal rates for the class B visa were Cuba with 81.85% of visa applications denied, Afghanistan 73.8%, Guinea-Bissau 71.88%, Mauritania 71.45 and Liberia 70.23%. Countries with the lowest visa refusal rates were Oman 1.93%, Cyprus 2.03%, Argentina 2.14%, Uruguay 3.14% and Qatar at 3.5%.
Permits are awarded according to eligibility. Some nationals were more eligible than others according to the statistics.
Citizens from the following countries recorded the highest rate of overstay: Djibouti at 27.23%, Burkina Faso at 26.1%, Eritrea at 25.36%, the Federated States of Micronesia at 25% and Liberia at 19.13%. Those that recorded the lowest rate of overstays were North Korea at 0%, Holy See at 0%, Trinidad and Tobago at 0.55%, Panama at 0.6% and Argentina at 0.84%.
US illegal immigration right now
The number of illegals in the country is estimated to be 12 million, of which 52% are Mexicans, 27% come from South America and 5% are from Europe and Canada. Foreigners become illegal once they enter the country illegally through its borders or when they overstay their visa periods. Most come to the U.S for better freedom, more work opportunities and because of political oppression. 25% of all illegal immigrants in the United States live in California.
