The expression ‘illegal border crossing’ is in a letter that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sent to the 27 national leaders, ahead of the European Council summit this week.
“We continue to see, time and time again, that the need to work together concerns all Member States. Most recently, Finland has been impacted by illegal border crossing orchestrated by Russia,” von der Leyen wrote in the letter.
Describing migration or border crossings as ‘illegal’ is inaccurate, harmful and against European values, as the UNHCR lays out. A person can be in a country with an ‘irregular’ status, since the breach is in most countries an administrative one, and it does not concern the penal code.
They are pointing out the difference between a criminal offense and an administrative offense. Crossing a border and entering a country without permission is typically not considered a crime and hence would not be called illegal. It would be consider an administrative offense, hence immigrants irregular status rather than illegal status.
The issue is confusing since the use of illegal immigrant is very common in english due to fud.
The destinction is however obvious when one notice that immigrants stand trials in administrative courts rather than criminal courts.