page_title: Aggravated felony
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Aggravated felony / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Lennon's Green Card allowing him to live and work in the United States, finally awarded in 1976.
context_page_description: The term aggravated felony was created by the United States Congress as part of the Immigration and Nationality Act to define a special category of criminal offenses. The INA says that certain aliens "convicted of an aggravated felony shall be considered to have been convicted of a particularly serious crime." Every "legal immigrant," including a "national but not a citizen of the United States," who has been convicted of any aggravated felony is ineligible for citizenship of the United States, and other than a refugee, every alien who has been convicted of any aggravated felony is ineligible to receive a visa or be admitted to the United States, if his or her "term of imprisonment was completed within the previous 15 years."
  When the aggravated felony was introduced in 1988, it encompassed only murder and felony trafficking in drugs and/or firearms. Every aggravated felony conviction was manifestly a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year.
context_section_description: The INA states that "[t]he term 'alien' means any person not a citizen or national of the United States." The terms "inadmissible aliens" and "deportable aliens" are synonymous, which mainly refer to the INA violators among the 75 million or so foreign nationals who are admitted each year as guests, the 12 million or so illegal aliens, and the INA violators among the 300,000 or more foreign nationals who possess the temporary protected status (TPS).
  A legal immigrant, particularly one who was admitted as a refugee pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1157(c), can either be a national of the United States (American) or an alien, which requires a case-by-case analysis and depends mainly on the number of continuous years he or she has physically spent in the United States as a lawful permanent resident (LPR).
caption: A 1976 permanent resident card, issued by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), stating the following: "This is to certify that [John Lennon] has been duly registered according to the law and was admitted to the United States as an immigrant...."[21]
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