Pleas with no lawful status
If you entered without inspection, you are treated as an applicant for admission. The inadmissibility grounds in INA 212(a)(2) are your list, and the burden of proving you are not inadmissible is yours. If you were admitted and overstayed, the deportability grounds apply to the conviction and the inadmissibility grounds apply to anything you file. Either way, the two forms of relief that matter most, cancellation of removal for non-permanent residents and adjustment through a relative, each carry a criminal bar that a single plea can trip, and since 2025 an arrest alone can mean detention without bond.
Current as of October 2026. We re-check this page regularly and after any rule change.
A person with no lawful status has the least to lose on paper and the most to lose in fact. There is no status for a conviction to end, but there is a path, and it runs through relief that the statute closes to anyone with the wrong conviction. This page goes through the list that applies to you, its burden, the two forms of relief a plea can close, the one exception on the list, and the arrest-based detention rule. The categories are on the crimes and removal page, and what to ask the criminal lawyer to negotiate instead is on the plea strategy pages.
Which list, and who has to prove it
Entered without inspection
You are treated as an applicant for admission, and an applicant for admission must show clearly and beyond doubt that they are entitled to be admitted. INA 240(c)(2); 8 C.F.R. 1240.8(b), (c). The inadmissibility grounds in INA 212(a)(2) are the list, and they are wider than the deportability grounds in three ways: a CIMT counts whenever it was committed, an admission counts without a conviction, and the drug ground has no marijuana exception.
Admitted and overstayed
You were admitted, so the conviction is tested against the deportability grounds in INA 237(a)(2), which DHS must prove by clear and convincing evidence. INA 240(c)(3)(A); Woodby v. INS, 385 U.S. 276 (1966). The single-CIMT ground there runs on a five-year clock from your admission and requires a possible sentence of a year or more. But adjustment of status requires admissibility, INA 245(a)(2), so the inadmissibility list applies to the application, with the burden on you. The visa holder page sets out the deportability list in full; this page is about the inadmissibility list.
| Ground | What it takes | Authority |
|---|---|---|
| Crime involving moral turpitude | A conviction, or an admission of the essential elements, or an attempt or conspiracy | INA 212(a)(2)(A)(i)(I) |
| Controlled substance | A conviction of, or an admission of, a violation of any law relating to a federally controlled substance. No marijuana exception | INA 212(a)(2)(A)(i)(II) |
| Multiple convictions | Two or more convictions with aggregate sentences to confinement of five years or more, regardless of single scheme or moral turpitude | INA 212(a)(2)(B) |
| Reason to believe drug trafficker | No conviction required; certain family members who benefited are also covered | INA 212(a)(2)(C) |
| Prostitution and commercialized vice | Within ten years of the application | INA 212(a)(2)(D) |
| Serious crime with asserted immunity | Immunity from prosecution was asserted | INA 212(a)(2)(E) |
| Human trafficking; money laundering | Reason to believe | INA 212(a)(2)(H), (I) |
| False claim to U.S. citizenship | For any purpose or benefit under the INA or any federal or state law; no 212(h) waiver | INA 212(a)(6)(C)(ii) |
The one exception: the petty offense exception
The CIMT ground does not apply to a single offense where the maximum penalty possible did not exceed one year and, if you were convicted, the sentence imposed did not exceed six months, counting any suspended portion. INA 212(a)(2)(A)(ii)(II). One offense only. It does not apply to the drug ground. It does not apply to the multiple-conviction ground. It is the reason a plea to a misdemeanor CIMT with a sentence of six months or less can leave the inadmissibility list untouched while a plea to a higher offense, or the same offense with a longer suspended sentence, does not. There is also a juvenile exception for a CIMT committed under 18 and more than five years before the application, INA 212(a)(2)(A)(ii)(I). The petty offense page goes through both.
What you say in court is part of the list. A plea colloquy or an allocution that admits the essential elements of a CIMT or a drug offense can be an admission under 212(a)(2)(A)(i) even where the disposition is not a conviction, and a factual basis that describes selling drugs can support a reason-to-believe finding under 212(a)(2)(C) with no conviction at all. The record of conviction page explains which documents will be read.
Cancellation of removal for non-permanent residents
Under INA 240A(b)(1), a person with no status who has been here ten years can ask an immigration judge to cancel removal and grant a green card. The elements are continuous physical presence for ten years, good moral character during that period, exceptional and extremely unusual hardship to a citizen or resident spouse, parent or child, and no conviction of an offense under INA 212(a)(2), 237(a)(2) or 237(a)(3). The last element is the one a plea decides.
The bar is absolute. It does not ask whether the offense would actually make you inadmissible or deportable on your facts; it asks whether you have been convicted of an offense "under" those sections. A single CIMT that would be outside the five-year deportability clock still bars cancellation because it is a 212(a)(2) offense. A firearms conviction bars it because it is a 237(a)(2) offense, even though firearms are not on the inadmissibility list. A document fraud conviction bars it under 237(a)(3). Under Matter of Cortez Canales, 25 I&N Dec. 301 (BIA 2010), the petty offense exception can take a small CIMT out of the 212(a)(2) category for this purpose, but it does not help with an offense that is independently a 237(a)(2) ground.
The ten years also stop. Under INA 240A(d)(1), continuous physical presence ends on service of a Notice to Appear or on the date you commit an offense referred to in 212(a)(2) that renders you inadmissible under 212(a)(2) or removable under 237(a)(2) or (a)(4), whichever comes first. Under Matter of Perez, 22 I&N Dec. 689 (BIA 1999), it is commission that stops the clock. A person with nine years of presence who commits a CIMT never reaches ten. The stop-time page covers the clock.
The burden on this relief is yours. An applicant must disprove an apparent mandatory bar by a preponderance, 8 C.F.R. 1240.8(d), and under Pereida v. Wilkinson, 592 U.S. 224 (2021), an applicant whose record of conviction does not show which part of a divisible statute they pleaded to loses. A plea to a statute that covers both a CIMT and a non-CIMT, with a record that does not say which, is a plea that bars cancellation. VAWA cancellation under INA 240A(b)(2) has a similar list: not inadmissible under 212(a)(2) or (3), not deportable under 237(a)(2), (3) or (4), and no aggravated felony.
Adjustment through a relative, and the 212(h) waiver
Adjustment of status requires admissibility. INA 245(a)(2). If a conviction or an admission puts you on the 212(a)(2) list, the application depends on a waiver, and the only criminal waiver for adjustment is INA 212(h). It covers the CIMT ground, a single offense of simple possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana, the multiple-conviction ground, prostitution, and the immunity ground. It does not cover any other drug conviction, and it does not cover a false claim to citizenship. It does not reach murder or torture. Three routes: the offense is more than 15 years old and you are rehabilitated, or refusal would cause extreme hardship to a citizen or resident spouse, parent, son or daughter, or you are a VAWA self-petitioner. For a violent or dangerous crime the waiver is granted only in extraordinary circumstances or on a showing of exceptional and extremely unusual hardship. 8 C.F.R. 1212.7(d); Matter of Jean, 23 I&N Dec. 373 (A.G. 2002).
The plea arithmetic follows. A CIMT with a sentence of six months or less on an offense with a one-year maximum is outside the ground and needs no waiver. A CIMT above that line needs 212(h) and a qualifying relative. Any drug conviction other than a single small marijuana possession ends adjustment, and you should not count on a waiver for it. That is why the first question for the criminal lawyer, for a person with a citizen or resident relative, is whether the offered plea is a drug plea at all.
Asylum
An application for asylum is barred for a person convicted of a particularly serious crime, and an aggravated felony is per se a particularly serious crime for asylum. INA 208(b)(2)(A)(ii), (B)(i). Withholding of removal is barred for a particularly serious crime, with an aggravated felony or felonies carrying an aggregate sentence of five years or more per se serious and everything else decided case by case under Matter of Frentescu, 18 I&N Dec. 244 (BIA 1982), and Matter of N-A-M-, 24 I&N Dec. 336 (BIA 2007). Deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture has no criminal bar. 8 C.F.R. 1208.17(a). The asylum side lives on our site asylumadvocate.com.
Family and marriage cases: the I-130 petition, adjustment through a citizen or resident spouse, and what admissibility means for that application.
Family petitions at visa4love.com →
icebail.comICE detention and bond: who gets a bond hearing, what the judge weighs, and what to do when a criminal case has made detention mandatory.
Detention and bond at icebail.com →
Detention on arrest, and the federal charges
The Laken Riley Act, Pub. L. 119-1 (January 29, 2025), added a mandatory detention category at INA 236(c)(1)(E) for a person inadmissible under 212(a)(6)(A), (6)(C) or (7) who is charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or admits committing theft, burglary, larceny, shoplifting, assault of a law enforcement officer, or a crime resulting in death or serious bodily injury. The trigger is the charge or the arrest. There does not have to be a plea. Separately, under INA 236(c)(1)(A) a person inadmissible under 212(a)(2) is detained without bond once the conviction or admission exists, and under Nielsen v. Preap, 586 U.S. 392 (2019), ICE does not have to take custody at the moment of release for the rule to apply. Where a bond hearing is available, criminal history weighs on both danger and flight risk. Matter of Guerra, 24 I&N Dec. 37 (BIA 2006). The mandatory detention page lists every ground.
Three federal charges belong to this status in particular. Improper entry under INA 275(a) is a misdemeanor, up to six months for a first offense. Reentry after removal under INA 276 is a felony, and where the earlier removal was for an aggravated felony, the reentry conviction is itself an aggravated felony under INA 101(a)(43)(O). And a false claim to citizenship, whether charged as a crime or found from a form, is an inadmissibility ground with no 212(h) waiver, INA 212(a)(6)(C)(ii), and a deportability ground under 237(a)(3)(D). The federal offenses page covers the sentencing side.
At the plea, the questions are these. Is the offense a CIMT, and can the maximum and the sentence be kept inside the petty offense exception? Is it a drug offense, and is there a non-drug alternative? Will the record say which subsection you pleaded to? Does the allocution admit anything the plea does not? And, for a person with ten years of presence, is there any plea that is not an offense under 212(a)(2), 237(a)(2) or 237(a)(3)? Each is worked through on the immigration-safer pleas page.
Read next: the petty offense exception, the stop-time rule, mandatory detention after a plea, or deportability versus inadmissibility.
Common questions
I have no status. Does the deportability list or the inadmissibility list apply to me?
It depends on how you got here. A person who entered without inspection is charged under the inadmissibility grounds in INA 212(a)(2) and must show clearly and beyond doubt that they are entitled to be admitted. A person who was admitted on a visa and overstayed is charged under the deportability grounds in INA 237(a)(2), which the government has to prove, but is tested against the inadmissibility grounds the moment they apply for adjustment or any other benefit.
Can I still get cancellation of removal after a plea?
Cancellation for non-permanent residents under INA 240A(b)(1) requires ten years of continuous physical presence, good moral character, hardship to a citizen or resident spouse, parent or child, and no conviction of an offense under INA 212(a)(2), 237(a)(2) or 237(a)(3). Any conviction on those lists bars it. Under Matter of Cortez Canales, the petty offense exception can take a small CIMT out of the 212(a)(2) category, but not an offense that is independently a 237(a)(2) ground. The ten years also stop on the day a 212(a)(2) offense is committed.
My spouse is a citizen. Can a plea stop the green card?
Yes. Adjustment of status requires admissibility under INA 245(a)(2). A CIMT conviction or admission makes you inadmissible unless the petty offense exception applies or a 212(h) waiver is granted. A drug conviction makes you inadmissible with no exception, and 212(h) waives it only for a single offense of simple possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana. A false claim to citizenship cannot be waived under 212(h) at all.
Can I be held without bond just for being arrested?
Under the Laken Riley Act, a person who is inadmissible under INA 212(a)(6)(A), (6)(C) or (7) and who is charged with, arrested for, convicted of, or admits committing theft, burglary, larceny, shoplifting, assault of a law enforcement officer, or a crime resulting in death or serious bodily injury is subject to mandatory detention. No conviction is required.
Tell us about the charge before you take the plea. Not after.
You get a free conversation with an immigration attorney, in your language. We speak English, Russian, Spanish and Uzbek in-house, and we bring in a live interpreter for anything else. We will read the charge against the immigration statute, tell you what the offered plea does to your status and to every form of relief, and tell you what to ask your criminal lawyer to negotiate instead. If the plea has already been entered, we will tell you what can still be done.