Terminology[edit]
There are campaigns that discourage the use of the term
illegal immigrant, generally based on the argument that the act of immigrating illegally does not make the people themselves illegal, but rather they are "people who have immigrated illegally."
Depending on jurisdiction, culture, or context, terms used instead of
illegal immigrant can include
irregular migrant,
undocumented immigrant,
undocumented person,
unauthorized immigrant, and
illegal alien.
[4][5][6][7][8][9]
In some contexts the term
illegal immigrants is shortened, often
pejoratively,
[10] to "
illegals".
[11][12][13][14]
Campaigns against the term "illegal"[edit]
In the
United States, a "Drop the I-Word" campaign was launched in 2010 advocating for the use of such terms as undocumented immigrants or unauthorized immigrants when referring to the
foreign nationals who reside in a country illegally.
[4]
In Europe, the
Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants (PICUM) launched its international "Words Matter"
[15] campaign in 2014 to promote the use of the terms
undocumented or
irregular migrants instead of
illegal.
[16][17][18][19]
Usage[edit]
Irregular migration is a related term that is sometimes used, e.g., by the
International Organization for Migration; however, because of the word
migration, this term describes a somewhat wider concept which also includes
illegal emigration.
[6]
News media[edit]
News associations that have discontinued or discourage (excluding direct quotations) the use of the adjective
illegal to qualify nouns that describe people include the
Associated Press (US),
[20] Press Association (UK),
European Journalism Observatory,
[21] European Journalism Centre,
[22] Association of European Journalists,
Australian Press Council,
[23] and
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (AU).
[24] Related terms that describe actions are not similarly discouraged by these campaigns. For example, the Associated Press continues to use the term
illegal immigration, whereby
illegal describes the action rather than the person.
[20]
On the other hand, the term
undocumented has been cited by the
New York Times as a "term preferred by many immigrants and their advocates, but it has a flavor of
euphemism and should be used with caution outside quotation."
[5] Newsweek questions the use of the phrase
undocumented immigrants as a method of
euphemistic framing, namely, "a psychological technique that can influence the perception of social phenomena."
[25] Newsweek also suggests that persons who enter a country unlawfully cannot be entirely "undocumented," as they "just lack the certain specific documents for
legal residency and employment," while "[m]any have driver's licences, debit cards, library cards, and school identifications which are useful documents in specific contexts but not nearly so much for immigration."
[25] For example, in the US, youths brought into the country illegally are granted access to public K-12 education and benefits regardless of citizenship status;
[26] therefore the youths are not entirely undocumented, since they are in fact documented for educational purposes.
U.S. Government[edit]
Title 8 of the US Code is the portion of United States law that contains legislation on
citizenship,
nationality, and
immigration. Defining the legal term
alien as "any person not a citizen or national of the United States,"
[7] the terminology used in Title 8 includes
illegal alien (33 times),
unauthorized alien (21 times),
undocumented alien (18 times),
illegal immigrant (6 times),
undocumented person (2 times), and others.
[8] An analysis by
PolitiFact, however, concluded that the term
illegal alien "occurs scarcely, often undefined or part of an introductory title or limited to apply to certain individuals convicted of felonies."
[9]
In the United States, while overstaying a visa is a
civil violation handled by
immigration court, entering (including re-entering) the US without approval from an immigration officer is a crime; specifically a
misdemeanor on the first offense.
Illegal reentry after deportation is a
felony offense. This is the distinction between the larger group referred to as
unauthorized immigrants and the smaller subgroup referred to as
criminal immigrants.
[27][
failed verification]