The administration of United States President Donald J. Trump has been closely monitoring countries whose nationals overstay their short-term visas in the U.S. as part of the country’s efforts to curb immigration, including Liberians. “Non-immigrants admitted for ‘duration of status,’ who fail to maintain their status also may be considered overstays. When the program is completed, the student must leave or go on to pursue another program of study,” the report said. In 2017, DHS recorded 783 out of 858 Liberians as “in-country overstays.” This constituted 18.93 percent of the expected 4,136 Liberian departures from the U.S. that year. In-country overstays from Eritrea, however, were 473 out of 2390 expected departures (19.79%); Nigeria had 19046 in-country overstays out of 185,375 expected departures (10.27 percent); Sierra Leone had 319 suspected in-country overstays, out of 2,844 expected departures; while Chad had 140 in-country overstays out of 611 total expected departures (22.91%).

Source: Daily Observer April 16, 2019 02:26 UTC