VZCZCXYZ0016
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDG #3642/01 3381909
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 041909Z DEC 06
FM AMEMBASSY SANTO DOMINGO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6799
RUEPINS/HQ BICE INTEL WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEFHLC/HQS DHS WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAHLC/HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
INFO RUEHZA/WHA CENTRAL AMERICAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHPU/AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE PRIORITY 4412

UNCLAS SANTO DOMINGO 003642 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CAR, CA/FPP FOR CHERIE LOMBARDI 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: CVIS CMGT DR SMIG KFRD ETRD
SUBJECT: DOMINICAN VALIDATION STUDY REVEALS LOW 
NON-IMMIGRANT VISA OVERSTAY RATE 
 
¶1.  SUMMARY:  Results of a completed validation study for the 
Dominican Republic suggest that three (3) to five (5) percent 
of Embassy's recently issued B1/B2 visa holders remain in the 
United States beyond the six months normally authorized under 
their visa classification.  The study included approximately 
900 randomly-selected recipients of B1/B2 visas issued at 
Embassy between September 2004 and September 2005. Officers 
tracked the selected applicants, whereabouts using phone 
calls, USG entry and exit records (drawn from the NAILS and 
IDENT systems), Dominican government entry and exit records, 
and local credit reports.  Applicants were sorted in a 
database by a wide range of characteristics, of which age, 
marital status, number of children, and prior travel history 
appeared to most strongly influence overstay rates.  Results 
are elaborated below in paras 5-14, while conclusions from 
the data are drawn in paras 15-17.   END SUMMARY 
 
 
- - - - - - 
METHODOLOGY 
- - - - - - 
 
¶2.  Embassy has completed a large-scale validation study 
designed to assess overstay rates, and how these vary based 
on applicants' personal characteristics.  The approximately 
nine hundred applicants included in the survey were selected 
in accordance with FPP guidance using the random number 
feature in Microsoft Excel.  They were first contacted 
telephonically between April and June 2006 at their places of 
work and residences using the phone numbers listed on their 
forms DS-156.  Those who could not be contacted and those 
whom callers suspected (based on phone conversations) of 
overstay were queried in both USG and Dominican immigration 
databases, as well as through a Dominican credit agency, 
further reducing the proportion of those whose whereabouts 
could not be determined. 
 
¶3.  Based on the data gleaned using the methods above, 
Embassy divided applicants into four groups: 
 
a. No Evidence of Overstay:  This group includes those visa 
holders whom Embassy was able to contact telephonically, 
along with those whose exits from the United States have been 
confirmed by one of the databases listed above.  It also 
includes those applicants who have been in the United States 
for less than six months. 
 
b. Confirmed Overstay:  This group includes those the 
location methods above have confirmed as being in the United 
States beyond the six months initially authorized to holders 
of B1/B2 visas. 
 
c. Suspected Overstay:  Records exist verifying that these 
applicants entered the United States at some point over six 
months ago, but no exits from the country have been recorded. 
FPU callers were unable to contact them - numbers had been 
disconnected or colleagues reported they had disappeared. 
 
d. Unable to Determine Travel History:  The few applicants 
listed in this category suffered from a rare confluence of 
factors - they could not be contacted and their entry/exit 
records were incomplete in at least two of the three 
databases.  Every effort was made to minimize the number of 
applicants placed in this group. 
 
¶4.  Embassy sorted applicants based on personal 
characteristics in order to attempt to determine what makes 
an applicant more likely to remain in the United States on 
his/her B1/B2 visa.  A database to store information on the 
900 selected applicants was created for this purpose.  Much 
of the data (including age, gender, prior travel history, 
destination, and adjudicating officer) was already on file 
and could be exported automatically from the Ad Hoc Reporting 
Database (ART).  Other personal characteristics (e.g. salary, 
marital status, number of children, and purpose of travel) 
were identified based on information entered into the 
applicants' case remarks at the time of the interview 
(Embassy's NIV adjudicating officers enter case remarks for 
all applicants, refused or issued). 
 
 
- - - - 
RESULTS 
- - - - 
 
¶5.  The location of 95% of selected visa recipients could be 
confirmed.  Of these, 3-5% appeared to have remained in the 
United States beyond the six months authorized under their 
visa classification.  Overall results are outlined below: 
 
No evidence of overstay:             833         95.0% 
Confirmed overstay:                   28          3.2% 
Suspected overstay:                   14          1.6% 
Unable to determine:                   2          0.2% 
 
 
¶6.  Overstay rates are broken down by selected personal 
characteristics in the following sections.  Note that in the 
charts, which primarily look at proportions, the number of 
visa recipients within a particular category is listed in 
parentheses in the line immediately below the category name. 
Analysis of the results is provided immediately after some 
charts.  Status codes are broken down as follows: 
 
A = No evidence of overstay 
B = Confirmed overstay 
C = Suspected overstay 
D = Unable to determine travel history 
 
 
¶7.  RETURN STATISTICS BY MARITAL STATUS: 
 
                    A        B        C        D 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
Single           86.8%    11.8%     1.3%       - 
 (76) 
 
Married          93.8%     3.9%     1.0%     0.3% 
 (308) 
 
Divorced         84.2%     5.3%     5.3%     5.3% 
 (19) 
 
Separated        83.3%    16.7%       -        - 
 (6) 
 
Common Law      100.0%       -        -        - 
 (12) 
 
Widowed         100.0%       -        -        - 
 (12) 
 
Not Provided     97.1%     1.6%     1.2%       - 
 (243) 
 
 
¶8.  RETURN STATISTICS BY AGE: 
 
Age            A          B          C          D 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
0-17        96.4%       0.5%       3.1%         - 
 (195) 
 
18-21       89.7%       6.9%       3.4%         - 
 (29) 
 
22-25       87.0%      10.9%       2.2%         - 
 (46) 
 
26-35       94.7%       4.2%       1.1%         - 
 (190) 
 
36-45       95.4%       4.1%       0.7%         - 
 (148) 
 
46-55       96.2%       1.9%       1.0%       1.0% 
 (105) 
 
56-69       96.7%       2.5%         -        0.8% 
 (122) 
 
70          92.9%       2.4%       4.8%         - 
 (42) 
 
COMMENT:  Older applicants (46  years old), along with minor 
children, appeared least likely to overstay their visas, 
while young adults (18-25 years old) were those most likely 
to do so.  Among young adults, there was a wide disparity 
between the behavior of those who had had previous visas and 
those who were first-time applicants - see para 16 for more 
 
information. 
 
 
¶9.  RETURN STATISTICS BY NUMBER OF CHILDREN: 
 
# of Children    A          B          C          D 
--------------------------------------------- -------- 
0             89.8%       8.0%       2.3%         - 
 (88) 
 
1-2           95.0%       2.8%       1.4%       0.7% 
 (141) 
 
3-4           92.6%       6.6%         -        0.8% 
 (122) 
 
5             96.5%       1.8%       1.8%         - 
 (57) 
 
Not Provided  96.5%       2.0%       1.4%         - 
 (346) 
 
OBSERVATIONS:  Applicants with five or more children appeared 
to present the lowest overstay rate. 
 
 
¶10.  RETURN STATISTICS BY PRIOR US TRAVEL: 
 
                 A          B          C          D 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
1st Time*     90.4%       4.7%       3.1%       1.8% 
 (446) 
 
Reval*        96.3%       1.4%       0.7%       1.6% 
 (431) 
 
"1st Time" issuances include those who have not had valid 
visas within the last ten years (since 1996). 
 
"Reval" issuances include those who have been issued U.S. 
nonimmigrant visas, regardless of their classification or 
duration, within the last ten years (since 1996). 
 
 
¶11.  RETURN STATISTICS BY PRIOR US TRAVEL, AGES 17-24 ONLY 
 
                 A          B          C          D 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
1st Time*     82.4%      14.7%       2.9%         - 
 (34) 
 
Reval*        97.7%       2.3%         -          - 
 (43) 
 
OBSERVATIONS:  Applicants who have never had visas are 
considerably more likely than those who have to overstay 
their visas. 
 
 
¶12.  VALIDITY OF VISA: 
 
There are two parts to this section.  The first considers the 
duration of the issued visa - i.e., how long the visa will be 
valid before it expires.  "Full validity" is defined as ten 
years for adults and five years for minor children.  The 
second section looks at the number of entries allowed under 
the issued visa.  In other words, is the visa valid for only 
a single visit, or can it be used to make multiple trips to 
the United States? 
 
 
   a. RETURN STATISTICS BY DURATION OF ISSUED VISA: 
 
Validity         A          B          C          D 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
Full          97.7%       1.3%       0.8%       0.2% 
 (607) 
 
Limited       88.9%       7.4%       3.3%       0.4% 
 (270) 
 
 
   b. RETURN STATISTICS BY NUMBER OF ENTRIES PERMITTED ON 
ISSUED VISA: 
 
# of Entries     A          B          C          D 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
1-Entry       89.4%       8.5%       2.1%         - 
 (94) 
 
Multiple      95.6%       2.6%       1.5%       0.3% 
 (780) 
 
OBSERVATIONS:  These results clearly indicate that when 
officers elect to limit a visa's validity, their concerns are 
sometimes justified.  Consider, for example, that 20 of the 
28 confirmed overstays had been the recipients of 
limited-validity visas. 
 
 
¶13.  RETURN STATISTICS BY STATE OF DESTINATION: 
 
Applicants' states of destination were determined based on 
the area codes of the phone numbers corresponding to their 
destinations in the United States.  This data had been 
provided by the applicants on their forms DS-156, and entered 
into the NIV system by FSNs at the time of their interviews. 
 
Note that the chart includes only the 597 visa holders for 
whom U.S. contact phone numbers were available. 
 
Destination      A          B          C          D 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
Florida       92.9%       5.2%       0.6%       1.3% 
 (155) 
 
New Jersey    92.0%       2.7%       2.7%       2.7% 
 (75) 
 
New York      92.7%       2.0%       2.9%       2.4% 
 (205) 
 
Puerto Rico   92.7%       1.8%       3.6%       1.8% 
 (55) 
 
Other State   90.7%       5.6%       3.7%         - 
 (107) 
 
OBSERVATIONS:  There is no evidence of a correlation between 
a visa applicant's stated destination and his or her 
likelihood of overstaying their visa.  Applicants traveling 
to states known for large Dominican-American communities 
(like New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico) were no more 
likely than others to overstay their visas. 
 
 
¶14.  OTHER CHARACTERISTICS 
 
Some of the characteristics analyzed in the survey did not 
appear to play significant roles in determining a visa 
recipient's overstay rate.  Four of these are elaborated 
below: 
 
SALARY:  Salary information was entered into the case remarks 
for about a third of the applicants selected.  Among those, 
applicants earning less than the equivalent of USD 1,000 per 
month were about twice as likely (5.6%) to overstay their 
visas than those earning more than the equivalent of USD 
1,000 per month (2.6%) or those whose salaries had not been 
recorded (3.6%). 
 
GENDER:  The difference between the overstay rates of men and 
women was approximately 0.3%, well within the survey's margin 
of error. 
 
BUSINESS OWNERSHIP:  There was virtually no difference 
between the overstay rates of business owners and others. 
However, in only 370 of the selected cases were the remarks 
extensive enough to determine whether the selected visa 
holders owned businesses. 
 
REFUSAL RATE:  There was little or no correlation between an 
applicant's overstay rate and the individual officer who 
interviewed him/her for the visa.  Officers with higher 
refusal rates fared similarly to those with lower ones. 
 
 
- - - - - - 
CONCLUSIONS 
- - - - - - 
 
 
¶15.  The vast majority of Embassy's B1/B2 visa holders appear 
to be using their visas appropriately.  Even among the groups 
revealed to be most at risk of overstaying their visas, it is 
only a small minority that is actually doing so. 
¶16.  In some ways, survey results bear out common sense. 
Young adults, particularly those who have never had visas, 
appear to merit the additional scrutiny they receive. 
Similar caution should continue to be exercised with respect 
to single and childless applicants, while applicants who have 
had previous visas have lower overstay rates. 
 
¶17.  Findings would appear to suggest that other groups 
should be evaluated differently.  Virtually no minor children 
or middle-aged (46-69 year-old) applicants appeared to have 
overstayed their visas.   Married applicants, as well as 
those with children, demonstrated similarly low overstay 
rates.  In contrast, the effect of an individual's salary on 
his or her overstay rate appeared less significant.  One way 
to interpret these results could be that family and cultural 
ties play stronger roles in the lives of Dominican applicants 
than do economic ones, and should be evaluated accordingly. 
 
¶18. Drafted by Alexander T. Bryan. 
 
¶19. This report and extensive other material can be consulted 
on our SIPRNET site, 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/wha/santodomingo/  
 
HERTELL