When does the “permanent bar” prevent immigrants from receiving a green card?

INA 212(a)(9)(c) is an immigration law that is VERY STRICT with undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally after spending more than one year here without immigration status. It does not matter if you are married to a U.S. citizen, or if your son won the Nobel Prize or the Medal of Honor… if this law applies to you, you will NOT be able to get a green card without spending TEN YEARS outside the United States.

Here is how I explain this law, which is INA 212(a)(9)(c):

-The important date to remember is APRIL 1, 1997, which is when this law took effect.

-This law only applies to people who have entered the United States without inspection after that date. Entering without inspection means illegally entering the U.S. without showing your visa at the border to a CBP officer. The most typical entry without inspection is an immigrant who crosses the desert to enter America from Mexico undetected. If you have been in the U.S. since before that date and have not departed, you do not have to worry about INA 212(a)(9)(c), no matter how you entered.

-This law applies to people who accumulated a year of unlawful presence after that date, and then subsequently left the U.S., and then returned to the United States without inspection. Unlawful presence refers to the time you spend in the U.S. 1) after your visa expires or 2) any time after an entry without inspection.

-The most common situation that INA 212(a)(9)(c) applies to is for an immigrant from Latin America who is living in the U.S. undocumented, then needs to return to their home country for some reason, and then returns back to their life in the U.S. by entering the U.S. without inspection. For example, an immigrant from Mexico named Juan crosses the desert undetected into the United States in 1995. Juan lived in the U.S. until 2001, when he receives a call that his mother in Mexico has just died. Juan cannot bear to miss her funeral, so he leaves the U.S. and goes to Mexico for a week. Juan then returns to the U.S. by again crossing the desert without inspection. In this case, the permanent bar would apply to Juan because he was unlawfully present for more than one year after the important date (from April 1997 until he left in 2001) and then subsequently reentered without inspection. As soon as he reentered, his hopes of receiving a green card through a normal family based application were killed.

If INA 212(a)(9)(c) applies to an applicant, then they will be unable to apply for a green card unless they spend TEN YEARS outside the United States. After spending that time outside, they can then apply for an I-212 waiver and include evidence of their time outside the U.S. including rental contracts, bank statements and utility bills from their home country.