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Comment by hn_go_brrrrr | Hacker News Reader

"Undocumented" is the current preferred euphemism for "illegal immigrant".

Or, "illegal immigrant" is a sometimes-used dysphemism for "undocumented immigrant". I'm not aware of any other class of people who break a law who are called "illegal" as a result; it's a rather dehumanizing impulse.

People refer to other people who break the law by the law they broke all the time.

Thieves, murders, fraudsters, etc

Illegal immigrant doesn't seem especially derogatory for someone who illegally immigrated.

I think it would be better to focus on the fact their felony crime rate is far below the native population than arguing over a pretty tame word used to describe them.

It's interesting to see how the language changed over time from "foreign born" to illegal immigrant depending on who was doing the immigrating:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=illegal+immigr...

Look at the amount of legal immigration:

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/ann...

There have been plenty of people who have been in this country without appropriate paperwork historically - they were never called illegals (see above). In fact even now people make differentiations between "visa overstayers" and people who snuck across the border, even though both are technically illegal aliens.

I think you don't have to go far to see the implications.

> It's interesting to see how the language changed over time from "foreign born" to illegal immigrant depending on who was doing the immigrating:

1. you seem to be implying that during periods of "white" immigration, americans were fine but the public changed their tune when it became south american/asian. However, irish/italian immigrants also received pushback. Specifically, irish were hated because they were catholic, and itlians weren't considered white back then.

2. You can also flip this around to say that as a society, we've gotten more accurate with our wording. Rather than lumping all immigrants (legal and illegal) into one bucket, we take care to point out that we're only against the illegal type of immigration. That seems like a win to me.

What part of "illegal" or "immigrant" implies a person is not a human?

It's just shorthand for "person who has immigrated illegally" anyway, arguing over these words is a distraction. You have any solutions?

Yes, fix legal immigration:

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/ann...

The current legal immigration levels are way too low, hence people breaking the law trying to establish roots in the country (or fleeing persecution elsewhere). We used to call people foreign-born instead of illegal, and not care about their immigration status at all. Oh, wait - that's when the Europeans were immigrating: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/ann...

If many many people are breaking a law (i.e. jaywalking), one should consider whether the law is actually reasonable in the first place.

Interestingly enough many (with no claims to majority/minority numbers) "illegal"/migrant workers do have "documents" from what I've seen working in agriculture. The documents are sufficient if you don't look too closely or are not the business owner - speaking from my own experience. These may be cases where the workers are paying taxes etc.

Not sure what kind of documents you are referring to. The I-9 form is very clear about what documents are acceptable. It is not difficult to understand if someone is legally able to work or not.

People may present forged or stolen docs for I-9 purposes.

"Illegal immigrant" is a dysphemism for "cheap labor".

“Illegal immigrant” is a euphemism for “Illegal alien”. In law these people are called aliens not immigrants. Illegal immigrant is actually an oxymoron

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