The media attempts to create outrage by accusing the U.S. government of employing discriminatory immigration policies that favor some nations over others. But discriminatory immigration is actually the fairest way to issue visas and manage immigration. Countries with a higher propensity to obey the law are given priority, while countries whose citizens are more likely to overstay, get arrested, rely on public benefits, or commit crimes or acts of terrorism are subjected to higher scrutiny, restrictions, or bans.
This is why Europeans, Australians, and Canadians find it easier to enter the United States than, for example, Libyans. The media uses the word “discriminatory” to imply racial bias, which is not the case.
The U.S. immigration system uses actuarial, data-driven risk assessment, identical to how insurance companies calculate premiums or how TSA screens airline passengers. It is nationality-based discrimination, not racial discrimination.
There are two completely different meanings of “discrimination,” which the media like to conflate. Statistical discrimination is a neutral, rational, policy-based practice used everywhere from banking to insurance to immigration. It means evaluating groups differently because their risk profiles are different.
A sixteen-year-old boy pays a higher car insurance premium than a forty-year-old woman for this exact reason. By contrast, that same sixteen-year-old boy would pay a lower premium for health insurance than a forty-year-old woman.
In immigration, statistical discrimination means applying more screening where data shows higher rates of overstays, fraud, or security issues and treating cases according to real-world probabilities. Every functioning immigration system on Earth does this. Prejudicial discrimination, by contrast, is the activist definition meaning irrational hatred or racial bias. That is not what U.S. immigration law is doing.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld the federal government’s authority to discriminate by nationality when admitting foreigners. The Court affirmed Congress’s plenary power over immigration in Chae Chan Ping v. United States (1889) and stated in Lapina v. Williams (1914) that the federal government may “exclude aliens altogether or prescribe the terms and conditions upon which they may enter.” Immigration classifications need only pass rational-basis review, the lowest legal standard. States cannot discriminate once aliens are admitted, but the federal government has broad authority at the border.
The Supreme Court has explicitly upheld national-origin vetting. Trump v. Hawaii (2018) upheld travel restrictions as a legitimate exercise of presidential authority under the Immigration and Nationality Act. The Court held that the President had made sufficient findings that the entry of certain nationals would be detrimental to U.S. interests, focusing on national security and terrorism-risk assessment.
DHS overstay data shows why nationality-based screening is necessary. According to FY2023 data, the countries with the highest overstay rates—often over 10 percent—include Angola, Liberia, Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Cabo Verde, Burkina Faso, and Afghanistan. Some nations have rates approaching 30 to 50 percent. Chad has a 49.27 percent overstay rate.
By comparison, Visa Waiver Program countries have a 0.54 percent overstay rate. The VWP consists of 42 developed nations with strict passport security, low fraud rates, strong counterterrorism cooperation, and visa refusal rates below 3 percent. These requirements demonstrate the risk-based criteria the system is built on.
USCIS, DHS, and ICE screening rest on hard numbers: overstay rates, fraud rates, absconder rates, national-origin connections to conflict zones, false-document patterns, and terrorism-risk assessments. If 80 percent of overstays come from specific regions, those regions receive heavier screening.
When Sweden has a near-zero overstay rate, Sweden gets easier processing. When Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, the Republic of the Congo, or any other country shows high overstay rates or extensive fraud, applicants face more scrutiny.
The system discriminates by nationality and statistical risk, not race. Belgium, a white European nation, has easier access than Libya. Nigeria faces restrictions while Ghana does not, even though both are African nations. Singapore, an Asian country, participates in the VWP; Myanmar, also Asian, faces heavy restrictions. A white French citizen gets visa-waiver access, while a white Libyan citizen does not.
The distinction is based on passport security, counterterrorism cooperation, overstay rates, and document integrity, not race. U.S. immigration applies objective criteria such as historical overstay rates, passport fraud levels, document verification capabilities, reciprocal agreements, and terrorism threat assessments.
Treating everyone exactly the same would be unfair because it ignores the actual facts of each group’s compliance behavior. An applicant from Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, or the Republic of the Congo and an applicant from Sweden do not present the same statistical probability of overstay, illegal work, filing asylum as a loophole, disappearing into the interior, or committing document fraud. Treating them identically would be irrational and irresponsible toward national security.
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