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Official terminology is "illegal aliens" or "illegal immigrants." As people, they are not illegal: their alien status / immigration status is.

(The law, I think, just uses the terms "illegal entry" / "unauthorized presence" / "inadmissible" / etc. and "illegal immigration" to describe the act in general. But USCIS, ICE, etc. do use the term "illegal alien.")

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Sorry for not making sure to use the full term. My point was though, "illegal" is not a bad word and it's used officially.

It's not bad as an adjective. It's bad as a noun.

There is definitely a trend among US progressives to use "undocumented" instead of "illegal," even as an adjective, to avoid the connotation of illegal people. I tend to follow that personally (even though in many cases it's not technically accurate—"undocumented" folks often have regular checkins with ICE if there's no deportation order yet, while proceedings are in progress, and that process certainly generates a lot of documentation, and there's also programs like DACA) but I won't fault someone for using the official terminology in good faith.

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