Reports: Bulgaria Border Guards Shoot At Migrants

[Nihil]

5. Yes, words *are* important ...

... so using the wrong one is a problem.

The word migrant is defined in Oxford English Dictionary as
"one who moves, either temporarily or permanently,
from one place, area, or country of residence to another".

They are ALL "migrants".

"It's a proper description for anyone who has moved across a border,"
-- Don Flynn, Migrants Rights Network.

Many (the majority?) of them are genuine refugees seeking refugee status elsewhere.
Many (the minority?) of them are economic migrants.
Most of the latter are pretending to be the former and muddying the water big time.

In the UK (and elsewhere), claims for "refugee status" are examined before being
either granted or denied. If granted, those ones will be "refugees".

Someone who has applied for refugee status and is waiting to hear the result of
their claim is an "asylum seeker".

They are not "immigrants" until they have been accepted as such by the receiving
country. If their claim has been rejected and instead of leaving the country, they
choose to break the law and stay then they are "illegal immigrants".

Anyway, the official term for such people in the US is still "alien" so "migrant" is
an improvement on that!