At the Border- Middle School

These terms describe some of the guidelines governing who is allowed into the country, how they enter, and the penalties for breaking immigration rules.

• Entry with Inspection: Entering the United States through a legal, designated Port of Entry, where the traveler presents valid documents to a border officer and is officially permitted to enter.

• Entry without Inspection (EWI): Entering the United States avoiding detection, such as crossing a border secretly between official checkpoints, without being inspected or admitted by a border officer.

• Grounds of inadmissibility: The legal checklist of reasons why the government can deny a person entry into the U.S. or deny their green card application. This includes health issues, criminal records, or history of immigration fraud.

• Crimes involving moral turpitude / Criminal background: A criminal background is a record of an individual's past arrests or convictions. "Moral turpitude" is a specific legal classification for crimes that violate gravity and social standards, such as theft, fraud, or intentional violence.

• 3 or 10-year bars / Permanent bar: Legal penalties triggered when an undocumented individual leaves the U.S. after living here without permission for a certain period. The law bars them from returning for 3 years, 10 years, or permanently, depending on how long they stayed.

• 212(d)(3) Waiver / Extreme hardship: A waiver is an official pardon for an immigration violation. To get certain waivers, an applicant must prove that being barred from the country would cause "extreme hardship" to their U.S. citizen or LPR relatives.