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Passion guided by reason's avatar

I've taken to using "unauthorized immigrant", in order to avoid both the pitfalls of affirming an "obfuscating euphemism" and of triggering an autopilot reaction to "illegal immigrant". Nobody has had an immediate "No human being is unauthorized" reaction, derailing rational discussion.

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Simon's avatar

I agreed with your basic stance until this post prompted me to reconsider. I still don't have a strong feeling, but the thing that gives me doubt is that I failed to think of a single other case where we say someone is an "illegal X" for any other crime.

Some crimes have separate words as a descriptor, such as "murderer".

Sometimes the word illegal is applied to a different object ("illegal firearm").

But I can't think of any phrase like "illegal driver", which makes me think that "illegal immigrant" actually is an outlier phrase.

I'm not claiming this is a proof you shouldn't use the phrase, just that it makes it more likely that the objectors have a core of a point, even if they've failed to articulate it well.

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