Analysis: Before Trump, U.S. Annually Imported Migrants from the Most Corrupt Countries in the World

The United States once regularly resettled migrants from the most corrupt nations in the world across American communities, a new analysis details. Last year, though, President Donald Trump halted much of this immigration via executive orders.

The analysis, published by the Center for Immigration Studies, looked at countries whose nationals Trump’s executive orders have either entirely or partially banned from immigrating to the United States.

In particular, the analysis highlights corruption levels on a nation-by-nation basis, showing that in Fiscal Year 2024, and likely prior years, the U.S. issued visas to tens of thousands of foreign nationals from the most corrupt countries in the world.

South Sudan, for example, is ranked as the most corrupt country in the world, according to a study by Transparency International, while Somalia is ranked as the second most corrupt country in the world.

Yet in Fiscal Year 2024 nearly 1,800 nationals from South Sudan and Somalia were issued visas to come to the United States.

Venezuela, which has been partially banned from visa issuance, ranks as the third most corrupt country in the world. Despite this, the Biden administration, in Fiscal Year 2024, admitted almost 2,600 Venezuelans to the United States after issuing them visas.

The Center for Immigration Studies’ Ronald Mortensen writes that vetting for nationals in such corrupt countries is nearly impossible for U.S. officials.

“In these countries, there can be no assurance that the documents available to vet individuals applying for admittance into the United States are valid or accurate,” Mortensen writes, “due to a combination of incompetence, poor or no recordkeeping, fraud, bribery, and personal dishonesty”:

For the payment of a bribe, a citizen of these countries, and in some cases even a non-citizen, can obtain the official documents necessary to apply for entry into the United States — a fake birth certificate, doctored law enforcement records, a phony diploma, a forged passport, fictitious bank statements, and all other documents normally used by U.S. officials to vet individuals before they are allowed to enter the United States.

Mortensen writes that Trump “was left with no option other than to suspend entry from highly corrupt countries in order to prevent the further importation of cultures of corruption, since effective vetting is not possible.”

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.