Written by Kevin Cohen. Mr. Cohen is the Co-founder and CEO of RealEye, a Tel Aviv-based security startup using advanced open-source intelligence to prevent threats and protect public safety.
It wasn't a smuggler, or a cartel runner, or a guy wading across the Rio Grande. It was a tourist.
Mohamed Sabry Soliman got off a plane in August 2022. He entered the U.S. legally, on a B2 tourist visa. By the time that visa expired six months later, he'd disappeared into America's blind spot: the hundreds of thousands who arrive legally and simply never leave. And by May 2025, he reappeared in Boulder, Colorado—with Molotov cocktails in hand, hurling fire at a pro-Israel rally (NYMag).
Soliman didn't sneak in. He walked in, stayed, and radicalized under our noses. He's not the exception—he's the flashing red warning light.
Visa overstays now make up nearly 40% of America's undocumented population (Statista). That's not a technicality—it's a crisis. In 2023 alone, more than 565,000 people overstayed their visas. And by mid-2024, nearly 400,000 of them were still in the country (DHS).
No biometric exit system. No routine enforcement. No one watching. Just a quiet hope they'll do the right thing and leave.
And a lot of them don't.
The biggest overstay offenders aren't tourists from Europe or business execs from Tokyo. They're from countries with instability, radical movements, or both. Chad, Sudan, Yemen, Eritrea—all recorded overstay rates north of 40% (Business Insider Africa). Dozens of countries with student visas saw more than 1 in 5 failing to leave.
This isn't about nationality. It's about policy negligence. The U.S. still gives visas to travelers from high-risk countries with little more than a paper application and a stamp. There's no check at departure. Once someone's here, they're here.
And when they reappear, it's often in the worst way.
Mansur Manuchekhrivich, a Tajik national, wired $70,000 to ISIS after overstaying in New York (CBS News). Adham Hassoun lived in Florida for years after overstaying before being convicted for recruiting terrorists (Wikipedia). In 2024, two Jordanians—including a student visa violator—tried to breach Marine Corps Base Quantico (Marine Corps Times).
FBI Director Christopher Wray didn't mince words: "The ones we're most worried about may have entered legally" (FBI.gov).
And still—Washington snoozes.
Senator Jim Banks introduced a bill after the Boulder attack to finally treat visa overstays like the illegal entries they are. "A person who overstays a visa," he said, "should be treated no differently than someone who jumps our southern border" (WBIW).
He's right. Because while the Biden administration pours billions into border theatrics, the real breach is silent, polite, and happens every day at passport control.
In 2019, DHS admitted it had no confirmed departure record for over 1.2 million temporary visa holders (Congress.gov). ICE is flooded with overstay leads it can't possibly chase. And the public is left thinking everyone here illegally snuck in through Texas.
But they didn't. Some came with a plane ticket, a valid visa—and an entirely different agenda.
In Texas, a Kenyan overstayer was charged with serial murder. In Florida, visa violators have been caught committing fraud, running scams, and joining criminal networks. These aren't rare stories. They're just ignored.
We built a system based on blind trust. And now we're shocked when people exploit it.
Ignoring 800,000 visa violations a year isn't immigration policy—it's security malpractice. And every one we ignore is a risk.
Because sometimes, the most dangerous border in America isn't guarded by drones or fences. It's the airport gate.
And for the victims in Boulder, that border was breached a long time before the flames lit up the street.
