border jumper
- noun
- /ˈbɔrdər ˈdʒʌmpər/
- US
- The government has put stricter penalties in place to deter border jumpers who enter the country illegally.
Examples
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He went under, and now some fucking Korean owns it... who fired these guys and is making a killing... because he hired 40 fucking border jumpers.
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I should have been a dirty border jumper like them, and then the world would be at my feet.
Blog text (5) -
That border jumper's got too much money as it is.
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Implying they are all border jumpers.
Blog text (25) -
Don't you know it's illegal... to hire fucking border jumpers, you nip bastard?
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Simply that Americans as a whole will have to continue to pay for the health, education, and feeding of huge and ever-increasing numbers of illegitimate border jumpers.
Blog text (1) -
Many border jumpers risk their lives crossing hazardous areas to escape difficult conditions in their home countries.
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The debate over immigration policies often highlights the challenges faced by border jumpers trying to find a better life.
How Legal
Surface Forms
Morphology
border + jumper
The noun is transparently built from 'border' (boundary) + 'jumper' (agent derived from 'jump'), so a learner who knows these constituents can infer 'someone who jumps/crosses a border'. Although 'jumper' can also mean 'sweater' in British English, the agentive reading is predictable from the verb 'jump' and the compound context, and similar agentive compounds exist cross-linguistically, so a B1 learner would likely understand the intended meaning.
Etymology
The noun border jumper may come from the image of someone literally jumping over a fence or wall at the border, with jumper meaning the person who jumps. So, border jumper means 'a person who illegally enters a country'.