Talk:Illegal immigration

Heptor's recent edits

@Heptor: Regarding this, let's talk it out. Could you explain what you believe to be a misrepresentation of sources? And what was wrong with my "removal"? I already explained how it is OR to cite a newspaper article that happens to use the word "illegals" for the claim that the phrase "illegal immigrants" is "often shortened" (presumably in a non-derogatory manner). Let's talk it out rather than reverting back and forth. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:52, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: You started making controversial edits to the article in places that were stable for a long time(your first edit on July 14th [1]), so I appreciate that you took it to the talk page. With regards to your edits:

1. The position of International Organization for Migration on the issue is already mentioned in the article. IMO is an organization that is affiliated with the UN (read the WP article). Like many other UN organizations, its decisions are not binding to the UN as whole. The nearest we have to such decisions are the GA and SC resolutions, and even they are usually quoted specifically as GA and SC resolutions on Wikipedia. Tabloids often don't make these kinds of distinctions, but this is an encyclopedia.
2. Nothing is wrong with providing a few notable examples of the use of "illegals". I now also added a source stating explicitly that the word "illegals" is often used by hardliners[2]. So maybe this statement was sloppily sourced, but it is not a controversial statement so WP policy is less strict about sources in such cases.

Thanks, Heptor (talk) 07:48, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

I made two edits. One was a routine, non-controversial removal of a citation to a source that didn't verify the content, when other perfectly good sources that did were already cited. The other was a revert of a WP:BOLD edit you made a few months ago. Technically, per WP:BURDEN and BRD respectively, the job of bringing it to the talk page was yours, so implying at this point (after you had already shirked the responsibility) that it was not your responsibility to begin with is questionable.

I am not familiar with these GA and SC resolutions. Could you explain what they are, and how they indicate that the position of the IMO is different from that of other UN-affiliated bodies?

The statement itself is not controversial (I don't think I implied it was...?), but listing examples of the practice as though they were citations that verified the content is generally to be avoided.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 10:32, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

UN Security Council and UN General Assembly are the principal governing bodies of the United Nations. UN also has many specialized agencies, and also related organizations such as IOM. Such specialized agencies and related organizations do not have jurisdiction over each others's nomenclature. I'm not sure if you noticed yet, but the article already mentions IMO's preferred terminology. IMO doesn't have the authority to speak for the rest of the UN. If you believe that the UN as a whole has similar policy, then please provide sources for that. Thanks, Heptor (talk) 11:05, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Victor Davis Hanson

A quote by Victor Davis Hanson has recently been removed from the article by Snooganssnoogans. Why? This person seems to be notable and the opinion he represents is widely held. Heptor (talk) 10:51, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

He's a complete non-expert on the topic, and it's absurd to use him to rebut the peer-reviewed research on the topic. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:03, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

I don't understand what you find so absurd. An opinion by a recognized scholar published in a major newspaper is certainly WP:Notable. There don't seem to be any disagreement of facts, just a disagreement of opinions. Heptor (talk) 21:51, 18 September 2018 (UTC)

Snooganssnoogans, another thing, what peer-reviewed research are you referring to? Massey presents a claim that there is something called a "bifurcation" of the labour market, a condition in which there are some jobs which apparently cannot be filled by legal citizens regardless of wages. This claim is sourced to Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, which is a publication by a activist institution, not a peer-reviewed journal. Are there sources for this claim other than this particular publication? Heptor (talk) 14:11, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Publications by the RSF are peer-reviewed. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:15, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

By whom? Heptor (talk) 14:18, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

If you're unfamiliar with the concept of peer-review, read this for an explainer.[3] In short, experts on the subject. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:24, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

I am quite familiar with the concept of peer review, having done a few of those myself. The research on illegal immigration is heavily politicized, which requires diligence on our side. The problem here is that the peer review appears to have been done by the same institution that published the research, which is an apparent conflict of interest. Peer review is no guarantee of neutrality, we still need to include all notable views. Heptor (talk) 14:31, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

The content we are discussing was edited by Daviddwd and Pete unseth, it would be helpful if they could weigh in on the discussion. Heptor (talk) 14:35, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

First, you boldly and falsely asserted that the RSF did not undertake peer-review. Now, you're claiming to be familiar with peer-review, yet say "that the peer review appears to have been done by the same institution that published the research"... Snooganssnoogans (talk) 14:39, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

He didn't say it wasn't peer-reviewed; he said 'RSF' is not a peer-reviewed journal. It's not. Daviddwd (talk) 15:47, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

It's perfectly legitimate of me to ask for details about the peer review process of a particular publication that I am not familiar with, no need to get combative. Heptor (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

It's a peer-reviewed RSF publication. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Hey! I wanted to find a source that was reputable and voiced a widely held opinion. I felt that this page was unbalanced and didn't reflect the views of many Americans. I know many people who find the view that "Americans don't want [manual labor] jobs" condescending. Hanson is a well-respected historian and I agree that an opinion by a recognized scholar published in a major newspaper is WP:Notable! Personally I'm in favor of immigration reform, but that's irrelevant to the goal of Wikipedia promoting WP:NPOV and all notable expert opinions on the subject. Daviddwd (talk) 15:47, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

You're violating WP:FALSEBALANCE and don't understand WP:NPOV. Taking your argument to its logical conclusion, what's next? Add some climate change denial nonsense to the climate change article and maybe some vaccine denial pseudoscience to the vaccine one. I mean, if adding non-expert gibberish to balance out peer-reviewed research is Wikipedia policy (it's not), surely those are the next steps? And no, Hanson has published zero peer-reviewed research on the topic of immigration. He knows nothing about this subject, and using him rebut peer-reviewed research is absurd. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 16:01, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

The word "notable" on Wikipedia basically applies to the criteria we use to decide if an article is suitable for the encyclopedia. Not every notable person is a suitable source for any article. Hanson is not a recognized scholar in this field, he's a military historian and a classicist. Doug Weller talk 16:18, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Hanson has covered immigration extensively, and is clearly an expert. Come on. ModerateMike729 (talk) 18:48, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

Struck comment from confirmed sockpuppet ModerateMikayla555/ModerateMike729. See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Darryl.jensen/Archive § 07 July 2019. — Newslinger talk 13:54, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Please link to a peer-reviewed study by Hanson on the topic of immigration. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 18:49, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

It appears that Hansson is indeed more a disseminator of ideas than a researcher on his own, so we may have mixed pairs and oranges here. Anyway, the theories of Gordon Hanson and Douglas Massey got sandwiched between Borjas and Hansson, which wasn't necessary to begin with. Heptor (talk) 18:16, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

Economy and labour market, Hanson and Massey

Currently, the article states that Gordon Hanson and Douglas Massey criticized George Borjas, and said that his position is oversimplified and does not account for contradictory evidence, such as the low net illegal immigration from Mexico to the US before the 1980s despite significant economic disparity.

The argument, as presented in the article, appears to be a non sequitur. From what is written, it is not clear how the low net illegal immigration from Mexico before the 1980s has anything to do with illegal immigrants competing for the low-income jobs with workers in the US. Could someone please summarize this opinion more coherently? Otherwise, it is not necessary to mention this argument at all, we can just state that they criticized Borjas and leave it at that. Heptor (talk) 10:43, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

• Good observation! In addition -the linked reference on "The Economic Logic of Illegal Immigration" - Gordon H. Hanson - April 2007 doesn't support the phrasing mentioned in the article -and which you've pointed out. Nowhere does Gordon Hanson say Borjas' position is "oversimplified and does not account for contradictory evidence" in the linked paper -and nowhere is Massey quoted in that article! Looks like some editor inserted those comments and provided a link to a paper from Hanson while hoping no one will actually read it. --ColumbiaXY (talk) 22:25, 6 August 2019 (UTC)
• More from Gordon Hanson's paper "While the border patrol has monitored the border in an effort to halt illegal entry since the agency was created in 1924, the modern experience of high illegal immigration dates back only to the 1970s, following the end of the Bracero program (1942–1964), which allowed seasonal farm laborers from Mexico and the Caribbean to work in U.S. agriculture on a temporary basis." "The U.S. Congress enacted the Bracero program in response to the labor crunch associated with World War II, according to Kitty Calavita, Inside the State: The Bracero Program, Immigration and the INS (Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1992). The program remained in place for two decades after the war, despite intense opposition from organized labor. U.S. employers were allowed to bring in workers from Mexico and the Caribbean to fulfill short-term labor contracts. At the end of their contracts, workers were required to return to their home countries. The vast majority of braceros worked on U.S. farms. At its peak, from 1954 to 1960, 300,000 to 450,000 temporary migrant workers entered the United States annually. The end of the Bracero program marked the beginning of large-scale illegal immigration from Mexico, creating the perception that terminating temporary immigration induced U.S. employers to seek out illegal labor." . These contradict the claim previously attributed to this paper regarding low illegal immigration to the US before the 1980s. -ColumbiaXY (talk) 19:03, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

Visual portrayals of illegal immigrants

We shouldn't just have pictures of illegal immigrants getting arrested or engaging in protest. Why not include pictures of famous illegal immigrants, illegal immigrants who ultimately obtained legal status or illegal immigrants who go about their normal lives? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 15:21, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Image choice aside, we must be specific and judicious in our description of the image as it depicts living people. They are apprehended as suspects of a crime (specifically, illegal entry). We cannot describe them as illegal immigrants (people who have crossed an international border illegally) as we do not know if they've been charged, tried, etc. EvergreenFir (talk) 16:46, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Snoodge, first a general remark: it’s totally fine for you to hold an opinion that all migration should be legalized and that currently illegal immigrants should all get amnesty. The purpose of Wikipedia is however to document reality, which is that migration is legally regulated in most countries, people who violate migration laws are considered criminals, and they often get arrested and deported. As such, a picture of immigrants getting arrested and deported is an appropriate illustration of the current state of affairs, however deplorable or inappropriate you might consider it to be. Heptor (talk) 16:49, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Snooganssnoogans isn't suggesting that the article shouldn't have such images, but rather that it shouldn't just have such images. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:59, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

@Cordless Larry: suggested here. --Heptor (talk) 13:19, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Read the first line of this thread where I actually comment on what kind of photos should be used: "We shouldn't just have pictures of illegal immigrants getting arrested or engaging in protest." I don't understand why you feel the need to double down on your errors. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 20:03, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Not to belabor the point, but you haven't uploaded any other pictures of illegal immigrants, you just deleted the existing one. A picture of a famous illegal immigrant would be an excellent addition to the article. Heptor (talk) 08:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

In the United States, immigration court is a civil administrative hearing and very few people who are deported are ever charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime relating to unlawful entry. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Piranhas really (talk • contribs) 17:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Caption

The caption used by the source is "Large groups of illegal aliens were apprehended by Yuma Sector Border Patrol"[4]. It's not, strictly speaking, the same as "suspected of illegal entry", since an a foreign national can enter a country legally, and become an illegal alien upon a failure to return. The argument about BLP seems thin. None of the people on the picture are identifiable, possibly with the exception of the federal agent on the left who is handing out some documents. Heptor (talk) 10:12, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see a source for the caption. Doug Weller talk 18:54, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm guessing CBP would be the source as the posters of the image. But I agree with Snoogan that we should be more cautious in our description per our policies (WP:BLP). EvergreenFir (talk) 19:06, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

The fact that an organization that frequently spouts lies and falsehoods about immigrants also happens to use the pejorative "illegal aliens" does not mean that we should also. There is also little reason to believe that whoever is writing captions for those photos takes care to be precise about how they describe the photos (unlike Wikipedia editors) or that the person has knowledge of the status of the people pictured in the photo. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 19:01, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd say that we would need to know their status regarding court dates and appearances before declaring that they ARE illegal immigrants. There are multiple cases of ICE holding US citizens, claiming they were illegal immigrants when, legally speaking, they were not immigrants at all. Even assuming the best intentions of the persons taking the photo and writing the caption, we do not have proof of the status of the individuals in this photo. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 19:52, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

The source is the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. I do what is bad about the caption some may consider the term "illegal alien" a pejorative but it is the legal term. The source is a verifiable government agency and they labelled those in the image as "illegal aliens". I also do not see the BLP concerns here since there is nothing that identifies those in the image since their faces are blurred out.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 20:49, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Spy-cicle is again stating something they have no way of knowing as truth: that they were all "sentenced". No one knows what happened to these people, and there is no valid reason to just suppose that just because these people were apprehended and someone took their picture, they were guilty of something and they were sentenced and all that. As for "legal term"--"illegal entry" is also a legal term. Why editors are climbing this hill in order to insert a stronger and pejorative term is a mystery to me. Drmies (talk) 21:31, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

1) Per PolitiFact, it's absolutely not a frequent legal term, and it's absolutely not used consistently by the government (it's sometimes used for individuals who are legal immigrants but who have committed crimes). (2) Even if the US government were to label black people the N-word, we would not do so on Wikipedia. Or well, some editors would, but editors who don't think this encyclopedia should be in the business of pushing pejoratives about groups of people wouldn't. I leave it to others to speculate why some editors are hyper-insistent on using a pejorative term that racists love and frequently use when there are perfectly fine alternative terms that are not pejoratives. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 21:37, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Soy-cicle, your logic in your edit summary ("U.S. Customs and Border Protection has declared them of being illegal aliens so it is likely that they have already been sentenced") is absolutely not how the law works. CBP does not do the sentencing or the determination, an immigration judge does. An immigration judge is necessarily NOT an employee or member of CBP, as that would violate having independent judicial due process. They work for the Department of Justice, which is a separate department from CBP, which is under the Department of Homeland Security. CBP makes accusations, but they do not make final status determinations, and they do not determining sentencing. So, CBP publishing a photo only tells us that CBP has made an accusation of immigration status. It doesn't tell us whether the individuals involved have appeared before an immigration judge and had their status determined through due process of the law. It's possible that they have, and that CBP published a photo of people who had their cases heard before a judge, but with the information provided, we have no way of knowing whether this photo is of people accused by CBP before appearing before an immigration judge, or people that have had their status determined by an immigration judge. We do not, as far as I am aware, have a reliable source stating whether the individuals in the photo have appeared before a judge and had their status determined, or whether they have only been accused by CBP. --OuroborosCobra (talk) 23:00, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

OuroborosCobra, you said that very well and much more patiently than I ever could. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 01:59, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

By what twisted logic is "illegal alien" a racist term? As used in 33 times in the US immagration law [5], it applies to any person of foreign nationality who is in the US illegally; in other uses, the term Alien applies to any foreign national in the US. By extension, it applies to anyone who had ever traveled abroad. Please stop derailing the debate. "Alien" is not a race, and neither is "illegal".Heptor (talk) 07:10, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Use of the term "Illegal Immigrant" in Title 8

This recent edit by Piranhas really states that "the term "illegal immigrant" is not defined in the statute and is only present in Title 8 within a signing statement by President Clinton", and that this term "is not legally correct terminology". The only reference provided is a link to the raw text of Title 8. At the same time, the Cato Institute article that is already cited in the article cites Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492, 2497 (2012), stating that "The Court [the United States District Court for the southern district Brownsville division] uses the phrases "illegal immigrant" and "illegal alien" interchangeably". The claim that that a term used in Title 8 of the US Code is incorrect is rather extraordinary, and should be supported by extraordinary sources. A handwave towards the president who signed the law seems to suggest that he didn't know to use correct terminology in his laws. This would perhaps be superficially plausible with the commander-in-chief-currently, but Bill Clinton happened to be a lawyer himself, on top of the fact that the law was written by a team of lawyers anyway. I suggest this edit to be reverted until a better source is provided. Heptor (talk) 22:37, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Brief summary: This edit makes a rather extraordinary claim, not supported by the source it provides. Heptor (talk) 23:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Illegal vs Undocumented immigrants

Dear fellow Wikipedians,

I'd like to reopen the debate on the use of the term "illegal migrant" in this article, because I'd love to know your point of view on this in 2020. As was already pointed out in an previous discussion and in the Terminology section (however without a concrete conclusion), more and more organisations and institutions have started to use the term "undocumented migrant", "irregular migrant" or "unauthorized migrant" when talking about people who stay in a country without the necessary paperwork, instead of "illegal migrant" or "illegal alien". "Undocumented" is nowadays seen as the more neutral term, while "illegal" is being more and more regarded as offensive and according to Wikipedia's guidelines, biased terms should be avoided (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch). Certainly because the terminology that is being used to refer to certain people can have a real impact, in this case negatively, and influence people's perceptions. Calling a person "illegal" reduces a person to just that, implying they're undeserving of rights, and that's discriminatory and dehumanising. The term "illegal immigrant" is only applicable to foreign born citizens found guilty of a crime (and being in a country without the necessary paperwork isn't even a crime in all countries), but in this article it is being used to describe people without a valid residence status in a way that is too general and implies criminality. And doesn't "illegal immigrant" seems to be a contradiction in itself? As "immigrant" actually refers to a lawful status?

I will now list some sources to back up this statement: - https://blog.ap.org/announcements/illegal-immigrant-no-more - https://splinternews.com/the-illegal-index-which-news-organizations-still-use-t-1793844197 - file:///C:/Users/intern2/Downloads/Undocumented_vs_Illegal_Migrant_Towards_Terminolog.pdf - https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2013/01/30/170677880/in-immigration-debate-undocumented-vs-illegal-is-more-than-just-semantics?t=1602163988291 - http://picum.org/words-matter/ and https://www.unhcr.org/cy/wp-content/uploads/sites/41/2018/09/TerminologyLeaflet_EN_PICUM.pdf - https://www.thoughtco.com/illegal-immigrants-or-undocumented-immigrants-721479 - https://www.raceforward.org/practice/tools/drop-i-word - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/insider/illegal-undocumented-unauthorized-the-terms-of-immigration-reporting.html - http://www.parlarecivile.it/che-cos%C3%A8-parlare-civile.aspx - https://ideas.time.com/2012/09/21/immigration-debate-the-problem-with-the-word-illegal/ - https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-i-dont-use-the-iwordi_b_763189?guccounter=1 - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/12/undocumented-antonio-jose-vargas - https://www.iom.int/key-migration-terms - https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/terminology - https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/e-library/glossary/i_en - The term "sans papiers" in French is most widely used and literally means "without papers" - https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/should-i-use-the-term-illegal-immigrant - https://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/05/opinion/garcia-illegal-immigrants/index.html - https://www.fosterglobal.com/blog/the-dehumanizing-history-of-the-words-weve-used-to-describe-immigrants/ - The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly highlighted the importance of the language used in its Resolution 1509(2006): “the Assembly prefers to use the term ‘irregular migrant’ to other terms such as ‘illegal migrant’ or ‘migrant without papers’. - ...

I'm not talking of moving the page or changing the term "illegal immigration" as a concept used in this article. I saw that this was already subject to several debates in the past. And I agree that "illegal immigration" does have the most search results online and is widely used. I just wanted to address the use of the word "illegal" when it refers to people. An act can be illegal, but a person in fact can't. The term "illegal immigrant" calls the person illegal rather than the act and so is not an accurate description. It is great that the Terminology section was added, but would it be an issue to change "illegal migrant" to "undocumented/irregular/unauthorized migrant" in the text of this article based on the sources listed above? Maybe we can find a compromise here? 88.82.58.143 (talk) 14:16, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

"Illegal immigrant" might not be an appropriate term (depending on the laws of the country in question, and what evidence you have that someone has actually broken them). But "undocumented immigrant" strikes me as a very dubious alternative. It seems to imply that the only issue is a bureaucratic one: e.g. that that didn't fill in their papers properly (and that if they then do so, everything will be OK). It also could imply "immigration that we don't know about" (which covers some but not all illegal immigration). Iapetus (talk) 10:48, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

The main problem from the perspective of a Wikipedia writer or editor is that there is no commonly accepted politically neutral term anymore. "Illegal immigrant" is widely seen as biased by those on the political left, and "undocumented migrant" is seen as biased by those on the political right. "People who have immigrated illegally" has been suggested as a neutral term, but it is awkward, especially in an article that uses the term so frequently. As a lawyer, I see the term "illegal immigrant" as an accurate and neutral term from a legal perspective, but I recognise it is no longer seen as such by a broad group.

Also I note that the argument that "people can't be illegal", and therefore the phrase "illegal immigrant" is wrong, is I think a specious one. If someone has no driving license, we might reasonably call them an "illegal driver" when they are behind the wheel. We could call a person who practices medicine without a license an "illegal doctor". The word illegal refers to the act implied by the noun, not to the existence of the person. Jaywilson (talk) 13:26, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

An IP editor, likely the same person as IP88 above, did a blanket replace of the term in the article. As is apparent above, this replacement was not supported by consensus. It also contradicted the cited references. Therefore, I reverted this contribution, and restored the article to its previous state. Heptor (talk) 22:26, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

I would like to register my support for the replacement of "illegal immigrant" with "undocumented immigrant". However, I see no issues with the term "illegal immigration". The problem is that "illegal immigrant" implies an inherent moral judgment on the personhood of the immigrant themself, whereas "undocumented" underscores the reality that the individual has no legal standing in the country to which they immigrated, due to improper or absent bureaucratic process on the immigrant's part. "Illegal immigration", by contrast, emphasizes the improper bureaucratic process or lack of bureaucratic process, without dehumanizing a person. newmila (talk) 21:37, 27 May 2021 (UTC) I do not believe there is wrong with using the term "illegal immigrant" on this article, and I would oppose mass replacing it on this article with "undocumented", as I believe RSs still use it. Both terms are problematic the former is that as no person can be inherently illegal, though perhaps it is just short/simple way to say "immigrant who illegaly entered the country" as that would be verbose to say everytime. "Undocumented" just sounds like the person in question is there legally but just lost their documents on the way. Perhaps "unauthorized" is a compromise, but I do not know the frequency of the term in RSs.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 21:49, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Are there no negative effects of illegal immigration?

Or have all arguments been erased in ideological edit wars?