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by skiing_crawling 3 hours ago
unauthorized? Are they trying to find a middle ground word between "illegal" and "undocumented"?
3 comments

>> "Unauthorized Immigration. As noted earlier, we use unauthorized immigrants to refer to individuals who enter the U.S. without formal admission under immigration law. A large share of these individuals are encountered by federal authorities at ports of entry, along the border, or in the interior and are subsequently issued an NTA in immigration court, allowing them to seek asylum or otherwise challenge removal. [...]"

page 11

Probably and it seems a good compromise to me. Under asylum law, "illegal" is technically wrong until the final judgement is rendered. And "undocumented" is IMO an obvious manipulation of language (you would not call a doctor practicing without a medical license "undocumented"). Pending a decision on legality, "unauthorized" seems both neutral and correct.
Seems like a fairly neutral term to me.