‘Illegal alien’

There really is no such thing. … And not because the Associated Press announced a long overdue change to its Stylebook yesterday and will no longer use "illegal alien", "illegal" or "illegals" to describe noncitizens unlawfully present in the U.S. … It’s because no human being should ever be described as "illegal." … Period. … These insensitive terms are also legally incorrect. They erroneously imply that a noncitizen unlawfully in the U.S. is, by virtue of his or her very presence, committing a criminal offense, rather than a civil immigration violation. Is it surprising then that many Americans buy the false restrictionist line that all unlawfully present foreign nationals are criminals? In fact, there is only a discrete group of non-citizens whose very presence in the U.S. is a crime, including those who illegally reentered the country after deportation.

– Attorney David Leopold in a blog for the Huffington Post