Why do people try to use the words "illegal" and "immigration" interchangably?

Question

Immigration does not include illegal aliens and vise versa.

An immigrant comes here the legal way. An illegal alien either jumps across the border or over stays their visa, breaking our laws.

So, why do people try to give them the same definition when they mean the total opposite?

Immigrant:

verb:To enter and settle in a country or region to which one is not native.

Illegal alien:

Adj:1 Owing political allegiance to another country or government; foreign: alien residents.
2 Belonging to, characteristic of, or constituting another and very different place, society, or person; strange

Two very different words. PERIOD. And no, I don't use what wikipedia says because it is full of stuff that any one can put in there...it may or may not be true.

Answer 1

The people that do have a specific political agenda.
They also think we are too dumb to know the differrence.

Answer 2

Not true! If you look up illegal immigrant this is what it reads. So those people are correct.


Illegal immigration
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Illegal immigration refers to immigration across national borders in a way that violates the immigration laws of the destination country. Under this definition, an illegal immigrant is a foreigner who either has illegally crossed an international political border, be it by land, sea or air, or a foreigner who has entered a country legally but then overstays his/her visa in order to live and/or work therein. In politics, the term may imply a larger set of social issues and time constraints with disputed consequences in areas such as economy, social welfare, education, health care, slavery, prostitution, crime, legal protections, public services, and human rights. Illegal emigration would be leaving a country in a manner that violates the laws of the country being exited.

Answer 3

Illegal means Illegal. Illegal Alien is the correct Term.
Immigration/immigrant has the connotation that a person has entered a country Legally.

Answer 4

Illegal alien is also a correct term.

As opposed to resident or non-resident alien...an illegal alien is NEITHER of these.

People that try to use "immigrant" as a description for an illegal alien are those that are trying to soften the term and make it seem as if what they are doing is not against the law.

Any way you slice it, they are here in violation of our immigration laws.

They are NOT the same as a legal immigrant, no matter how badly they want you to believe it.

Answer 5

People are angry about the illegal part. The pro-illegals hope that we will forget that the 20 to 30 million trespassers are ILLEGAL ALIENS, not LEGAL immigrants.

Answer 6

They try to fool us by saying immigrant instead of ILLEGAL immigrant. They hope we will forget about the ILLEGAL part like it doesn't matter - sorry but it does matter!

Answer 7

You are right. There is a big difference bewtween illegal immigrants and immagrants.I have seen questions before where the asker probably ment to say illegal but said immigrant instead

Answer 8

illegal immigrant is correct, they are immigrating illegally if they do not follow the rules. They are going from thier country of origin to this one. That is immigration. If they do not follow the law, they are illegal.

Answer 9

Well, the media refers to them as "migrants" or "immigrants" because they're too chicken to use the name they really are: ILLEGAL ALIENS.

Answer 10

The term "Illegal immigrant" is also a correct term.