A federal watchdog has found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement took few enforcement actions against foreign nationals who overstayed their visas over a four-year period, including those flagged as potential threats to national security.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General released the audit on September 29, 2026, examining ICE’s handling of nonimmigrant visa overstays from fiscal years 2021 through 2024. The report’s conclusion was blunt: foreign nationals who potentially posed threats to the United States remained at large despite their illegal status.
Every year, millions of foreign nationals receive nonimmigrant visas to enter the United States for tourism, business, or study. Those who stay past their authorized period of admission, or who otherwise violate the terms of their visa, are classified by ICE as deportable “overstays.”
According to the inspector general, ICE received 3,145,375 nonimmigrant overstay leads during the four-year span. Of those, the agency categorized 104,049, or 3.3 percent, as potential national security and public safety concerns.
ICE deemed 21,885 of those leads viable for investigation. Yet those leads resulted in just 496 investigations, about 2 percent, and the arrest of only eight foreign nationals.
The watchdog pointed to a September 2021 policy as a key factor. That policy directed ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations division to investigate only “Priority 1” leads, meaning those potentially posing the highest threat to national security or public safety.
Even among those top-priority cases, action was limited. Of the 1,769 viable Priority 1 leads, HSI launched only 84 investigations, about 5 percent. Those investigations produced two arrests.
The remaining 3,041,326 overstay leads, or 96.7 percent of the total, were labeled Non-Priority. Those not placed on hold for further review were sent to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations for monitoring, potential investigation, and enforcement.
ERO received 2,837,188 of those Non-Priority leads. Of that number, the agency investigated just five leads it determined to be a public safety threat, resulting in two arrests.
The inspector general concluded that ICE conducted few overstay lead-initiated investigations, and arrested even fewer foreign nationals, because the September 2021 policy directed the agency’s limited resources only toward leads that posed a threat to national security, public safety, and border security.
The report also found that when ICE did attempt to act on a lead, it ran into problems verifying addresses and locating the foreign nationals in the United States. On top of that, the watchdog determined ICE did not have sufficient resources to pursue all overstay leads.
The inspector general’s office issued one recommendation to improve ICE’s nonimmigrant overstay enforcement efforts. ICE concurred with that recommendation.
The watchdog noted that ICE cooperated throughout the review, providing timely responses to requests for information and neither delaying nor denying access to the information auditors requested.
The audit was conducted to determine the extent to which ICE took enforcement action against nonimmigrant overstays during fiscal years 2021 through 2024. Its findings paint a stark picture: out of more than 3 million leads over four years, including tens of thousands flagged as potential security concerns, only a handful of foreign nationals were ever taken into custody, leaving the vast majority of potential threats unaddressed.
