[manicdee]

"Illegal immigrant" is quite plainly an anti-refugee phrase that was invented to criminalise people seeking refugee status. It's never been used otherwise.

"Undocumented immigrant" does technically describe a person's status but it's only used in relation to certain types of foreign visitor. Across the white English speaking world we'll almost universally use "undocumented immigrant" to refer to brown-skinned people, while we use "visa overstayers" to refer to white-skinned people.

Some guy from India comes to work for a cousin's business on a sponsored work visa and stays a week too long? Undocumented immigrant.

Some white woman from the UK comes to work for a major tech company and stays a few years too long? She just overstayed her visa.

Then to round of the discussions about words changing in meaning over time, remember when holding thumb and forefinger together in a circle was just "the game" and you'd do things to get your friends to look — at which point they'd lose "the game"? But these days, it's only a white power symbol, thanks to some anonymous idiot on 4chan.

It's a crazy world that changes so quickly. I can understand why some people want the world to stay just the same for a decade or two. But that can't be done. We have to adapt or die.

[BeetleB]

> It's never been used otherwise.

Absolutism will not get you anywhere. You're not omniscient, and do not know the minds of (literally) millions of people who use the phrase.

[luxuryballs]

> “is quite plainly an anti-refugee phrase”

legally speaking a refugee is not illegal, “illegal immigrant” is just a term for a person who enters through the border illegally in a country where there are both lawful and unlawful methods of entry, refugees are accepted by law also, and if accepted through the defined process of law are not “illegal”

[lazyasciiart]

But we're talking about vernacular usage, not legal.

[natchy]

Although I think there’s some merit to your comment, I don’t think it’s racial, I think it’s cultural or classist.

A black English actor (like Idris Elba) would be “overstaying his visa” as would a wealthy Indian tech CEO.

People coming from another country in the anglosphere are viewed differently because there is a shared culture. There’s a huge venn overlap in race between these countries but that’s because they were English colonies.

All-in-all your comment seems a little hostile. We’re all learning. Even you don’t have all the answers, surely.

[ALittleLight]

I think class is part of it, or it makes us assume motivations, but I think the differences in terms actually describe what's being done. If you move to a country to live there from now on, in violation of the law, you're an illegal immigrant. If you visit temporarily with a visa, but overstay or violate the terms, without intending to become a permanent resident, then you are overstaying your visa.

We probably assume something about the rich actor versus the poor janitor, but if we knew their intentions I think we could describe them accurately.

I also don't think there is anything wrong with the term "illegal immigrant". We have terms for crimes that are frequent or frequently talked about, e.g. drunk driver, deadbeat dad, arsonist, whatever. Immigrating, in violation of the law, is illegal and the people who do it are fairly called illegal immigrants to differentiate them from those that don't violate the law. I think insistence on "undocumented" is more of a rhetorical use from people who think immigration should be more permissive.

[Grustaf]

The common objection to "illegal immigrant" is of course to say that "people are not illegal", and strictly speaking a more grammatically correct term would perhaps be "illegally immigrated".

But this is a mostly irrelevant objection, the same construction is used in other phrases, including "undocumented immigrant". It's not the person that is necessarily "undocumented", it's their act of immigration, and everyone understands that.

[ALittleLight]

That is commonly what people say, but as you point out I don't think their objection is consistent. You might call someone who perpetrated an act of violence a "Spouse abuser" even if that person spends 99.9% of their waking hours not beating up their spouse.

Calling someone a spouse abuser, drunk, jaywalker ("Nobody actually walks jays!"), illegal immigrant, whatever doesn't at all imply that you are summing up the totality of that person as all and only that appellation. It just means you think they've committed the associated crime. It would be rude to call an illegal immigrant an illegal immigrant at every opportunity, but it is just dishonest in my view to assert that they are not an illegal immigrant.