The debate over immigration language
"The trouble is that when you start trying to come up with alternatives, they're all problematic," said Roy Beck, a former journalist and founder of NumbersUSA, a group that favors limiting legal and illegal immigration. He said even the term "immigrant" is often misused when applied to those who come legally on a temporary worker visa.
Beck said a substitute for "illegal immigrant" might be the more cumbersome "unlawfully present foreign national." Kerwin raised the possibility of "unauthorized immigrant." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/07/AR2011010704597.html
By Andrew Alexander -- Washington Post