Date of Conferral

2015

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Policy and Administration

Advisor

Victor L. Ferreros

Abstract

Expired student visas can contribute to illegal residence in the U.S. and may also be a valuable source of information for Homeland Security. Although the reason for remaining in the U.S. might be for nonthreatening purposes, threatening actions could occur as an individual gets lost in the country. The purpose of this study was to determine how visas were issued, the reasons an individual may remain beyond the approved visa date, and the mechanisms intelligence and law enforcement agencies use to exchange information with each other. This research was based on the new war theory and the Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP) in order to predict results or intentions an individual may have with a student visa overstay. Quantitative nonimmigrant student visa data sets derived from the State Department were used to apply findings for a pair wise comparison. The pairwise comparison of issued visas involved completing a rank order comparison as determined by the LAMP Method. The benefit of this quantitative methods study was to demonstrate the need and reason to share information between the relevant enforcement agencies. The small detail of visas being attributed to terrorist events is minimal; however, there are known events involving visa overstays and terrorist events. The results noted major trends in the number of nonimmigrant student visas, organized by year, which could be directly linked to changes in U.S. international relations with other countries. This quasi-experimental research influences positive social change by utilizing information amongst law enforcement and intelligence agencies in accordance with location of individuals residing in the U.S. on expired student visas.

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