In other news, at a town hall meeting held yesterday in Arizona, Senator John McCain said he won’t stop calling them “illegal immigrants” even if you find that to be an offensive term.
“Someone who crosses our borders illegally is here illegally. You can call it whatever you want to, but it’s illegal. I think there’s a big difference between someone who does something that’s illegal and someone who’s undocumented. I’ll continue to call it illegal.”
We don’t have a style book here, but I stopped referring to them as illegal some time ago. I began asking myself what the purpose of using the term illegal was, which in this case comes off as a pejorative, and I came up empty. Even if they are technically here illegally, they are still just immigrants looking for a better life. That’s not something I consider illegal.