‘Illegal immigrant’ no more

[ZOB]

55. If you drive without an operator's license, you ARE an "illegal driver".

Your diatribe on what makes one an "immigrant" aside, we operate in a society that legally defines citizenship and immigration. I'M not an immigrant because I was born in this country and U.S. law defines me as a natural citizen. My great-grandparents WERE immigrants, and they completed the necessary process to move to this country legally.

Since you seem to take great interest in the reasoning behind my position, I'll explain it to you. "Illegal immigrant" is a perfectly accurate descriptive term. The "best" arguments against its use seem to be either that we screwed over a bunch of Native Americans, word games insisting that the term defines the PERSON as illegal instead of their ACTIONS, or that the term has a stigma attached to it (maybe breaking immigration law SHOULD have a stigma attached when so many have spent a lot of time and effort to legally immigrate).

I don't consider any of these reasons valid, nor do I believe that they justify abandoning a concise descriptor for a string of apologetic words that mean the exact same thing.