The Egyptian man who stabbed a rabbi in a vicious attack is in the U.S. illegally. He’s one of many who overstay a student visa and just disappear into cities and towns across America. The problem has been brought to the forefront with the attack on the Boston-area rabbi. It’s another immigration problem that must be solved (see below).

Khaled Awad approached Rabbi Shlomo Noginski, who was just leaving a Jewish school, when Awad brandished a gun and tried to take his car keys. Rabbi Noginski ran to a park nearby to escape, but Awad caught up to him and stabbed him several times in the arm.

He ran up to the rabbi, a father of 12, and demanded his car keys at gunpoint, which sent Noginski running across the street into a park. That is where Awad caught up to him and repeatedly stabbed him in the arm.

Graphic Photo Below – Credit New York Post

Awad was arrested and is being held without bail. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will take Awad into custody after his criminal proceedings are over.

The visa overstay problem should be addressed and fixed. The country with by far the most overstays is China, with nearly 15,000 in 2017 and nearly 13,000 in 2018. The top five countries that were responsible for 44 percent of all student and exchange visa overstays are India, China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Brazil.

According to Dan Cadman of The Center for Immigration Studies, America’s admission of very large numbers of foreign students and exchange visitors creates national security risks. The Department of Homeland Security’s annual overstay report warns that “student and exchange visa programs have the highest rates of overstays among all broad visa categories. In other words, those who come here on student visas are more likely to violate the terms of their visa and stay on illegally, contributing to our illegal immigration problem.”

President Trump had proposed a  fix for the overstay problem in September of 2020, and The Center for Immigration Studies report from 2019 suggested ways to fix the problem:

-Develop a permanent funding stream to provide ICE with resources more appropriate to the problem and threat. Enforcement actions must be boosted to meet higher annual goals, including more removals and more criminal prosecutions.

-Implement new ICE programs to improve compliance:

-Make contact with suspected overstayers, beginning with call-in letters;
-Send emails and texts before the expiration of the duration of stay to warn of consequences;
-Target investigations based on patterns and clusters of violators; and
-Locate, prosecute, and remove those who run fraud schemes and the visa holders involved in them.

-Mandate enhanced vetting for groups with disproportionate numbers of overstays, such as countries, categories, schools, and exchange programs. Consider disqualifying certain types of educational programs, such as public elementary and secondary schools, community colleges, and certain vocational schools, especially if such programs exist in the applicant’s home country. Direct the State Department to issue fewer visas to nationals of countries with high overstay rates, informed by empirical data on overstays and other patterns. Develop a red-flag system for consular officers warning of suspect educational institutions or exchange sponsors.

-Amend the law to create sanctions or other consequences for schools and exchange programs (including third parties and recruiters) with poor non-compliance rates, including denying authorization to host international students. Condition I-20 authority on cooperation and information-sharing with ICE for compliance or investigative purposes — including public institutions in sanctuary jurisdictions.

-Allow imposition of expedited due process, including mandatory waiving of the right to immigration court proceedings after overstaying, as a condition of admission in certain categories.

A report from 2020 called attention to one scam by a Chinese national where thousands of students overstayed visas:

NBC Bay Area began its investigation following the arrest of Chinese national Weiyun “Kelly” Huang, the CEO of a company called Findream.
An indictment filed in federal court told how Huang allegedly used two companies, Findream and Sinocontech, to provide fake employment documents for more than 2,500 students with F-1 visas.

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