illegal crossings
Unauthorized frontier passages
Illegal crossings are entries into a country without authorization at points other than official checkpoints—wading across a river, hiking through desert, or slipping through an unguarded stretch of border.
The term appears frequently in immigration debates and news coverage: Illegal crossings at the southern border reached record levels.
The phrase emphasizes the manner of entry rather than the person's legal status afterward.
- smugglingIllegal covert transport
- trespassingUnauthorized presence on property
- checkpointInspection station on route
- port of entryAuthorized border crossing location
- borderOuter edge or limit
border patrol · humanitarian crises · frontier · human trafficking · forged documents · visa overstay · mountain pass · no-man's-land · coyote · safe house · boundary · restricted area · demarcation line · undocumented · green card · detention center · xenophobia · deportation
- Cold War EscapeBerlin Wall, Iron Curtain, Checkpoint Charlie, escape attempts, defection
- human smugglingcoyotes, snakeheads, smuggling networks, smuggling rings, smuggling routes
- migrationmigration, immigrants, refugees, immigration, emigration
- maritime operationscoast guard, coastal patrol, harbor patrol, naval patrols, patrol boats
- immigration dataadmission rates, approval rates, immigration quotas, green cards, deportations
illegal crossingslegal immigration
Sanctioned permanent relocation abroad
visa applications · ports of entry · passport control · customs clearance · refugee resettlement
illegal, illegally, illegality, legal, legally, legality, legalize, legalization, illegalize