Former 212(c) relief
Section 212(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act let a lawful permanent resident with seven years of lawful domicile ask for a discretionary waiver of almost any ground of removal. Congress repealed it effective April 1, 1997. Under INS v. St. Cyr, it remains available to permanent residents who pleaded guilty before that date, and in 2026 it is still granted in immigration court to people whose old convictions have caught up with them.
Current as of September 2026. We re-check this page every quarter and after any rule change.
This page exists because a repeal does not erase the people who relied on the law before it. A permanent resident who took a plea in 1994 on the understanding that a waiver was available is entitled to that waiver today. The elements are the old ones, the regulation is 8 C.F.R. 1212.3, and the application is decided by the immigration judge in the removal case. The waivers overview compares it with the current waivers; the relief page lists everything else.
The repeal, and why it did not end the remedy
Section 304(b) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 repealed INA 212(c) effective April 1, 1997, and replaced it with cancellation of removal under INA 240A. For several years the government took the position that the repeal applied to everyone in proceedings after that date, whenever the conviction occurred.
In INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (2001), the Supreme Court rejected that position for people who had pleaded guilty before the repeal. A defendant who pleaded guilty at a time when 212(c) relief was available gave up trial rights in part because the plea preserved a path to staying in the country. Applying the repeal to those pleas would attach a new legal consequence to a completed transaction, and the Court held the statute did not do that. The regulation implementing St. Cyr is 8 C.F.R. 1212.3, which governs applications in proceedings today.
Who still qualifies in 2026
The people who can use this remedy share three things:
- Lawful permanent residence. 212(c) was a remedy for permanent residents.
- A plea entered before April 1, 1997. The plea is what St. Cyr protects. A conviction in the same years after a trial rather than a plea raises a different question that we do not summarize here.
- Seven consecutive years of lawful unrelinquished domicile in the United States, the requirement of the former statute and of 8 C.F.R. 1212.3.
Thirty years after the repeal, the typical applicant is a long-time resident with a conviction from the 1980s or 1990s that was never charged, who has now been placed in proceedings after a trip abroad, a naturalization interview or a new arrest. The old disposition has to be found, the plea date confirmed, and the sentence actually served computed.
The five-years-served bar
Before its repeal, 212(c) was amended to bar relief for a person convicted of an aggravated felony who had served a term of imprisonment of five years or more. The regulation, 8 C.F.R. 1212.3(f)(4), ties that bar to the date of the plea. It applies to plea agreements made on or after November 29, 1990 and before April 24, 1996. A plea made before November 29, 1990 is not barred by an aggravated felony at all. And a plea made between April 24, 1996 and March 31, 1997 is governed instead by the AEDPA restrictions, under 1212.3(h)(2), which is a separate analysis. Within the window where the bar applies, two things matter. It turns on time actually served, not the sentence imposed, so a ten-year sentence with four years served does not trigger it. And it applies only to aggravated felonies as defined in INA 101(a)(43), so whether the old conviction is an aggravated felony at all is decided first, under the categorical approach.
Judulang and the "comparable grounds" rule
212(c) was written as a waiver of grounds of exclusion, for residents returning from abroad. It was extended to residents in deportation proceedings inside the country, but for years the Board limited that extension to cases where the deportation ground charged had a "comparable" ground of exclusion. Residents were denied because the ground charged against them had no exact counterpart on the exclusion side.
In Judulang v. Holder, 565 U.S. 42 (2011), the Supreme Court held that the comparable-grounds approach was arbitrary and capricious. Whether a resident could seek the waiver depended on the label the government chose for the charge rather than on anything about the person, and that was not a permissible way to decide. After Judulang, eligibility does not turn on matching the charge to a ground of exclusion.
Old convictions, old records
Court files from the 1980s and 1990s are archived, incomplete or destroyed. A 212(c) application needs the plea date, the statute of conviction as it read at the time, and the custody records showing time served. We start the records requests on day one, because the clerk's office is the slowest step in the case.
Discretion
212(c) was always discretionary, and the balancing test the Board uses today for cancellation of removal was built for it. Matter of Marin, 16 I&N Dec. 581 (BIA 1978), set out the framework: the favorable factors in the applicant's life are weighed against the adverse ones. Matter of C-V-T-, 22 I&N Dec. 7 (BIA 1998), carried that framework into cancellation for permanent residents. For a 212(c) applicant in 2026, the favorable side usually includes decades of residence, citizen children and grandchildren, a work history, and the long passage of time since the offense, and that record is documented the same way as for LPR cancellation.
How it is applied for in proceedings
- In the removal case, to the immigration judge. The application is filed with the court under 8 C.F.R. 1212.3 by the deadline the judge sets, and is decided at the individual hearing after testimony on discretion.
- With the conviction record and custody records establishing the plea date, the statute, and time served.
- With proof of seven years of lawful domicile: the green card and the residence history.
- With the discretionary record described above.
- In the alternative with anything else you qualify for. A resident with an old plea and a newer conviction may need 212(c) for the old one and a different remedy for the new one.
A government filing fee may apply to the application and is not our legal fee; the EOIR fee page is the authoritative schedule, and we confirm the amount with you before filing.
If it is granted, and if it is not
A grant waives the ground of removal and ends the proceedings. You keep the lawful permanent residence you already have; nothing new issues. A denial comes with a removal order, which is appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals within 30 calendar days, and the Board reviews the judge's findings of fact for clear error and questions of law and discretion de novo under 8 C.F.R. 1003.1(d)(3). After the Board, review in the court of appeals is narrowed by INA 242(a)(2)(B): under Patel v. Garland, 596 U.S. 328 (2022), the factual findings underlying a discretionary denial are unreviewable, while questions of law, including the application of a legal standard to established facts under Guerrero-Lasprilla v. Barr, 589 U.S. 221 (2020), remain open. The record built in front of the judge is therefore close to the last word on discretion, and it is built with that in mind. See after a removal order.
212(c) and cancellation
The two remedies do not stack. Under INA 240A(c)(6), a person previously granted 212(c) relief cannot receive cancellation of removal, and a person previously granted cancellation is barred from a second grant. A resident who qualifies for both is advised at the start which to use, and the choice usually turns on the aggravated felony bars: cancellation bars any aggravated felony, while 212(c) bars only one for which five years or more were served, and only for pleas taken in the 1990 to 1996 window described above.
Read next: cancellation for permanent residents, the 212(h) waiver, criminal convictions and removal, or post-conviction relief.
Common questions
My conviction is from 1995. Why is it a problem now?
Immigration consequences follow a conviction for life. A conviction that was not acted on at the time can be charged when a permanent resident returns from a trip abroad, applies to naturalize, or is arrested for something else and comes to the government's attention. If the plea was entered before April 1, 1997, former section 212(c) may be the remedy, and it is one of the reasons old dispositions have to be located and read.
Does 212(c) apply if I went to trial instead of pleading guilty?
INS v. St. Cyr, 533 U.S. 289 (2001), addressed people who pleaded guilty in reliance on the availability of the waiver. This page covers pleas. If you were convicted after a trial in that period, the analysis is different and we review it individually rather than summarize it here.
What does seven years of lawful unrelinquished domicile mean?
Seven consecutive years living in the United States lawfully with the intent to remain, as the regulation at 8 C.F.R. 1212.3 and the former statute describe it. Whether particular time counts, and when the seven years had to be complete, are questions that turn on the case law in your circuit and on the dates in your own record.
Can I get 212(c) and cancellation of removal?
Not both. Under INA 240A(c)(6), a person who was previously granted relief under section 212(c) cannot be granted cancellation of removal, and a prior grant of cancellation or suspension bars a later one. The two are considered together at the start so that the right one is used.
Tell us where your case is. We will tell you what is still possible.
You get a free case review with an 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 tell you what stage you are at, which forms of relief are open to you, what your deadlines are, and whether we can help. If we cannot, we will say so.