Quedarse en un país después de que tu visa expire vs. salir a tiempo
Si actúas
Quedarse tras caducar el visado (estancia irregular)
44%
Si no actúas
Marcharse a tiempo (cumpliendo los términos del visado)
9,0%
Porcentaje de quienes luego se arrepienten de cada elección. Las barras y el registro completo aparecen abajo.
Estilo de vida
Última revisión 2026-05-09
Calidad de la evidencia 3.88/5
Puntuación de revisión en ocho dimensiones según la
rúbrica de calidad
. Cada dimensión puntuada de 1 a 5.
D1 Verificación de fuentes
5/5
D2 Autoridad e independencia de las fuentes
4/5
D3 Precisión de la tasa de arrepentimiento
1/5
D4 Comparabilidad de las fuentes
2/5
D5 Patrón de Gilovich
5/5
D6 Calidad de la prosa
5/5
D7 Completitud de las advertencias
5/5
D8 Calidad de la muestra
4/5
Media3.88/5
Datos sustitutos — no existe ninguna encuesta directa sobre el arrepentimiento para esta decisión. Las tasas se derivan de puntuaciones de satisfacción y datos de barreras de acceso en lugar de preguntas que preguntaban directamente sobre el arrepentimiento. Ver advertencias más abajo.
Arrepentimiento por acción
Quedarse tras caducar el visado (estancia irregular)
44%
Proxy de ~44% de "volvería a hacerlo" (NO arrepentimiento específico por sobrepasar la estancia): el 56% de los probables inmigrantes indocumentados dicen que aun así elegirían mudarse a EE. UU. si pudieran retroceder en el tiempo (frente al 72% en 2023), de modo que el 44% no lo haría —una medida del arrepentimiento por la inmigración bajo la intensificada aplicación de la ley de 2025, no del arrepentimiento por sobrepasar un visado específicamente
Probables inmigrantes indocumentados en los Estados Unidos (incluye sobreestancias de visa)
encuesta retrospectiva, agosto-octubre 2025
Arrepentimiento por inacción
Marcharse a tiempo (cumpliendo los términos del visado)
9,0%
Proxy modelizado de ~35% (no existe encuesta directa): inferido de la investigación sobre migración de retorno, en la que aproximadamente un tercio de los migrantes de retorno describen su regreso como involuntario o del que se arrepienten, combinado con el hallazgo de KFF de que el 70% de los inmigrantes dicen que aun así se mudarían a EE. UU. Ninguna encuesta mide el arrepentimiento entre las personas que efectivamente abandonaron EE. UU. al expirar el visado
Nacionales extranjeros que dejaron EE.UU. al expirar la visa y desearían haber podido quedarse
proxy retrospectivo, 2025
% que se arrepienten de esta elección
Quedarse tras caducar el visado (estancia irregular)Marcharse a tiempo (cumpliendo los términos del visado)
44%9,0%
action dominates — Domina la acción — la mayoría se arrepiente de actuar.
Decisiones relacionadas
Decisiones semánticamente similares — mismo terreno, distintos compromisos.
Huir de la zona de conflictoPermanecer en la zona de conflicto
13%47%
Inacción dominante
Arrepentimiento por inacción 3.6× mayor
The KFF/New York Times 2025 Survey of Immigrants (n = 1,805, conducted August
to October 2025) found that 56% of likely undocumented immigrants in the US
say they would still choose to come to America if they could go back in time,
down from 72% in 2023. The remaining 44% is not a clean regret figure: the
survey question offers three options (would still move, would not, not sure),
and for the full sample the “would not” answer (9%) is dwarfed by “not sure”
(21%) — but KFF does not publish that breakdown for the likely-undocumented
subgroup specifically, so 44% can only be read as an upper bound on regret for
this population, not a validated rate. On the inaction side, no survey asks
people who actually left the US on visa expiration whether they regret it.
The best available proxy uses the same survey’s directly reported finding for
all immigrants: 70% say they would still choose to move to the US, 9% say
they would not, and 21% are not sure — so 9%, not the 30-point “non-yes”
share, is the defensible stand-in for people who watched others build lives,
careers, and families in the US while they departed on schedule. Read this
way, the two proxies may be further apart than a first glance suggests,
though the action-side ceiling of 44% is soft enough that the true gap
cannot be pinned down precisely: the underlying “would still move” figure for
likely undocumented immigrants alone swung from 72% in 2023 to 56% in 2025 as
enforcement intensified.
The mechanism on each side is structurally different. Overstayers who develop
regret are generally responding to chronic enforcement anxiety: 75% of likely
undocumented immigrants in the KFF survey report worrying about detention or
deportation, 77% report negative health impacts from those worries, and 74%
have avoided ordinary activities such as work or medical care. These costs are
ongoing and compounding. The person who left on time bears a one-time
opportunity cost, which may grow over time as they observe the lives built
by those who stayed — a classic Gilovich inaction pattern — but does not
experience the chronic psychological burden of enforcement fear. The tradeoff
is between acute daily anxiety and long-term opportunity loss, which is a
categorically different comparison than most decisions in this dataset.
Both figures carry significant uncertainty and are sensitive to enforcement
context. The underlying “would still move” rate for likely undocumented
immigrants was 72% in 2023 and fell to 56% in 2025 — a 16-point drop tied to
a specific political and enforcement environment — but KFF has not published
how much of that 16-point shift moved into “would not” versus “not sure” for
this subgroup, so the corresponding regret ceilings (28% in 2023, 44% in
2025) should not be read as measured regret rates for either year. The
inaction-side rate (9%) has a firmer anchor: it is the source’s own directly
reported “would not” figure for all immigrants surveyed, not a derived
complement, though it still answers a general immigration-satisfaction
question rather than a departure-specific one. Nationality matters
enormously: the relevant regret calculus for
a Mexican national who overstays and builds a family near the border differs
fundamentally from an Indian H-1B holder who ages out of status or a European
tourist who simply delayed departure by a few weeks. This entry describes
aggregate patterns and should not be read as evidence about any specific
nationality, visa category, or enforcement policy.
Fuentes: acción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
[1]Kaiser Family Foundation / New York Times — KFF/New York Times 2025 Survey of Immigrants: Worries and Experiences Amid Increased Immigration Enforcement↗ 1 other entry
Estudio primario
75% of likely undocumented immigrants worry about detention or deportation; 77% report negative health impacts from immigration-related worries; 56% say they would still move to the US if they could go back in time (down from 72% in 2023); the source's full-sample breakdown of the same question shows non-yes answers split 9% would-not / 21% not-sure, but does not publish that split for the undocumented subgroup, so the 44% non-yes share for this subgroup is an upper bound on regret, not a validated rate
Extracto
“"Four in ten (41%) immigrants say they personally worry they or a family member could be detained or deported, with worries most pronounced among likely undocumented immigrants (75%). Nearly eight in ten (77%) likely undocumented immigrants say they have experienced negative health impacts due to immigration-related worries. 56 percent of likely undocumented immigrants say they would still choose to move to the United States if they could go back in time, down from 72 percent in 2023."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2025-11-01
Accedido
2026-05-09
Cálculo
KFF/NYT survey conducted August 28 – October 20, 2025, n = 1,805 immigrant adults, nationally representative probability-based sample, with oversampling of likely undocumented immigrants (n ~300-400 subgroup). CORRECTED 2026-07: the prior version of this entry used the complement of the "would still move" rate (100% minus 56% = 44%) and called that "implied regret." This is an invalid derivation: the underlying survey question (Q12, "If you could go back in time knowing what you know now, would you choose to move to the U.S.?") is a three-option item — would still move / would not / not sure — not binary, and the source's own full-sample breakdown shows the non-"yes" share splits into 9% would-not and 21% not-sure (of the 30-point gap for all immigrants surveyed): "One in ten (9%) say they would not choose to move to the U.S. if they could go back in time, and one in five (21%) say they are not sure." Most of the "non-yes" share is uncertainty, not dissent. No breakdown of would-not vs. not-sure is published for the likely-undocumented subgroup specifically, so there is no way to compute a validated regret-only figure for this side. The 44% figure is retained ONLY as an upper bound (the ceiling on how high true regret could be, since at most 44% of this subgroup did not say "yes"), not as a point estimate of regret; the true would-not share for this subgroup is unknown and, by analogy with the full-sample pattern, plausibly well below 44%. CONSTRUCT CAVEAT: this measures views about IMMIGRATING (a would-do-again forced choice), not regret of OVERSTAYING a visa specifically; the survey does not ask about overstaying, nor does it ask whether respondents left after visa expiry. It is the closest available retrospective measure for this population, but the two constructs are not identical, and even the raw "would still move" rate is enforcement-era sensitive (72% in 2023 vs 56% in 2025 among likely undocumented immigrants). The 75% deportation worry and 77% negative health impact figures document the chronic cost of the overstay decision but are not themselves regret measures. The survey was conducted during a period of heightened enforcement (Trump second term), which may depress the "would still move" rate relative to baseline years.
[2]US Department of Homeland Security / US Customs and Border Protection — Entry/Exit Overstay Report, Fiscal Year 2023
Informe gubernamental
FY2023 suspected in-country overstay rate: 1.02% of 39 million expected departures; 399,708 suspected in-country overstays
Extracto
“"By May 1, 2024, the number of Suspected In-Country Overstays for FY 2023 decreased to 399,708, resulting in a Suspected In-Country Overstay rate of 1.02 percent of the 39,005,712 expected departures. For non-Visa Waiver Program countries (excluding Canada and Mexico), the FY 2024 Suspected In-Country Overstay rate is 2.22 percent."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2024-10-01
Accedido
2026-05-09
Cálculo
DHS Entry/Exit Overstay Report FY2023. Used here to establish the scale of the overstay population (hundreds of thousands annually) and the enforcement context. The overstay report does not contain regret data; it establishes that overstays constitute a large share of the undocumented population (estimates suggest over 40% of total undocumented population). Used as the corroborating government source establishing the decision context, not the regret proxy.
Fuentes: inacción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
[1]Kaiser Family Foundation / New York Times — KFF/New York Times 2025 Survey of Immigrants: Worries and Experiences Amid Increased Immigration Enforcement↗ 1 other entry
Estudio primario
Among all immigrants surveyed, large majorities say key aspects of their lives are better as a result of moving to the US (educational opportunities 74%, financial situation 70%, employment 65%); on whether they would still choose to move to the US if they could go back in time, 70% say yes, 9% say no, and 21% are not sure — the 9% figure is the source's directly reported would-not rate, not a derived complement
Extracto
“"About two-thirds or more immigrants say the educational opportunities for themselves or their children (74%), their financial situation (70%), and their employment situation (65%) are better as a result of moving to the U.S. Seven in ten (70%) immigrants say they would still choose to move to the U.S. One in ten (9%) say they would not choose to move to the U.S. if they could go back in time, and one in five (21%) say they are not sure. This share dropped 16 percentage points among likely undocumented immigrants (from 72% to 56%)."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2025-11-01
Accedido
2026-05-09
Cálculo
The inaction regret proxy (those who left on time but wish they had stayed) is the hardest side to anchor empirically. No published survey specifically asks people who left the US upon visa expiration whether they regret having done so, and this survey's own sample is drawn entirely from immigrants currently living in the US, so it cannot include anyone who left. CORRECTED 2026-07: the prior version of this entry used a complement construction (100% minus the 70% who say they would still move) to derive a 30% "would not" rate. This was an invalid derivation: Q12 of the same survey is a three-option question (would still move / would not / not sure), and the source directly reports the breakdown for all immigrants: 70% would still move, 9% would not, and 21% are not sure. Treating the full 30-point non-"yes" share as regret wrongly folded 21 points of genuine uncertainty into the 9-point "would not" figure. The 0.09 rate now used is the source's own directly-reported "would not" statistic, not a derived complement. This remains a weaker anchor than the action side on two counts: it measures people who stayed rather than people who left, and it answers a general relocation question rather than an overstay- or departure-specific one. It should be read as a rough directional estimate only, not a measured inaction-side regret rate.
[2]Pew Research Center — What we know about unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S.
Fuente de referencia
The US unauthorized immigrant population grew to 11.0 million in 2022, with 8.3 million in the workforce — a large, economically embedded population, establishing the scale and pull factor against which a leave-on-time decision is weighed
Extracto
“"The unauthorized immigrant population in the United States grew to 11.0 million in 2022, according to new Pew Research Center estimates based on the 2022 American Community Survey. The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. workforce grew from 7.4 million in 2019 to 8.3 million in 2022."
”
Datos de la fuente de
2024-07-22
Accedido
2026-05-09
Cálculo
Pew Research Center overview of the unauthorized immigrant population. Used here only to establish the scale of the population and economic embeddedness (11.0 million people, 8.3 million in the workforce in 2022) that constitutes the pull factor against which a leave-on-time decision is weighed. This article does NOT measure regret, residence duration, or visa-overstay share, so it cannot anchor an inaction regret rate — it is context only. The 0.09 inaction figure is the KFF/NYT survey's own directly-reported all-immigrants would-not-move again rate (see the KFF/NYT source notes above; corrected 2026-07 from an earlier, invalid complement construction), not a measured rate for people who left specifically, and should be read as a directional estimate only.
Advertencias
MEDICIONES PROXY EN AMBOS LADOS: el regret_delta de 0,09 está dentro del margen de incertidumbre de ambos proxies y no debe tratarse como una diferencia significativa. El proxy del lado de acción (0,44) se deriva de la encuesta KFF/NYT 2025: el complemento de "aun así se mudaría a EE. UU." entre los probables inmigrantes indocumentados. Se midió durante un período de presión inusualmente alta de aplicación de la ley (segundo mandato de Trump), y la misma pregunta arrojó un 28% de arrepentimiento implícito en 2023 —un aumento de 16 puntos porcentuales en dos años—. La tasa de arrepentimiento del lado de acción de referencia (sin pico de aplicación de la ley) está probablemente más cerca de 0,25-0,30. El proxy del lado de inacción (0,35) es una inferencia conservadora a partir de la literatura sobre migración de retorno y del fuerte y persistente factor de atracción de la oportunidad económica estadounidense; no tiene un ancla directa de encuesta y arrastra una amplia incertidumbre. Las dos poblaciones son estructuralmente no comparables: el lado de acción se mide entre personas que actualmente están en EE. UU. y que eligieron sobrepasar su estancia y afrontan la presión de la aplicación de la ley, mientras que el lado de inacción se estima a partir de la población de personas que se marcharon y para las que no existe ninguna encuesta sistemática. El concepto de "sobrepasar la estancia frente a marcharse" tampoco es una decisión discreta única para la mayoría de las personas: las estancias sobrepasadas a menudo se acumulan de forma incremental a medida que las personas retrasan su salida semana a semana en respuesta a circunstancias cambiantes, lo que hace que un marco de arrepentimiento retrospectivo sea menos limpio que en otras decisiones de este conjunto de datos. La nacionalidad importa de forma significativa: las tasas de estancias sobrepasadas y las motivaciones económicas difieren enormemente según el país de origen, y las dinámicas de estancias sobrepasadas de mexicanos, centroamericanos y del sur de Asia difieren sustancialmente de las de los titulares de visado europeos o del este de Asia. Esta entrada no debe citarse como evidencia a favor de ninguna postura específica de política de aplicación de la ley migratoria; describe resultados experimentados y preferencias expresadas, no recomendaciones normativas.
