Also, regarding the phrase “undocumented immigrants,”

Since the deliberate implication is that there is no issue, these people are merely missing some paperwork, like an accident where an ID was not delivered through the mail,

This is very much a “nations are only lines on a map” style of thinking.

So let’s give a “nations are only lines on a map” style of answer.

If national citizenship is so meaningless that not having it is merely equivalent to not having a few papers, that it’s irrelevant what historical experience one has, or education, or national loyalty, because nations are social constructs and don’t really exist, right?

Then one agrees that the “United States of America” cannot hold any moral liability, on account of being a few lines on a map, or a few pieces of paper.

So every war, every coup, every conquest, every civil rights violation, and so on, the “United States of America” is not responsible for and owes, in itself, absolutely nothing.

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If you do think the United States of America as a geopolitical entity is more than just a few lines on a map or a few pieces of paper, then the term you can use if you feel “illegal immigrant” is too dehumanizing, because “no person is illegal” (even though by that same logic there can be no such word as “trespasser”),

is “unauthorized migrants”.

Apparently that’s the “in” neutral word now.

I find it remarkable just how quickly the Democratic Party re-learned that a distinction exists when Trump got into motion.