[i_am_nomad]

Few of them are undocumented. There’s plenty of documentation on them - in schools, emergency rooms, police reports. As you well know, your term “undocumented” is designed to trivialize the border and deprecate the very concept of American citizenship.

At a minimum, refer to them as unauthorized immigrants, since that is the distinguishing factor from a public policy perspective.

[throwaway98121]

Labeling people as illegals is merely meant to dehumanize them. I wasn’t trivializing the border and so your response is no more than a straw man.

[zeveb]

> Labeling people as illegals is merely meant to dehumanize them.

No more than labelling those who commit crimes as criminals.

Subjects of foreign states — i.e. aliens — who are present illegally are illegal aliens. That's what they are (in addition, of course, to being human beings, with parents and rights and hopes and dreams and all the rest).

Labelling them 'undocumented immigrants' is a bit too cute, since many of them do retain the identifying documentation issued by their states. It's also begging the question of whether they should be immigrating at all.

For myself, I philosophically tend towards completely open borders, but I do wonder about the practical implications, and I dislike the blatant dishonesty & appeals to emotion common on both sides of the issue.

[nahzgah]

No it's not. They are humans who are breaking the law and who shouldn't be in the US. Nobody is saying they are not humans. Just that they don't get to stay in the US without following the process.

[throwaway98121]

This is a political talking point to scare poor and uneducated white people. It’s why we are willing to penalize folks who were brought to this country as children and use this future for political gains.