Talk:Illegal immigration to the United States

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 August 2021 and 18 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Blueberry0927.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 22:50, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Edits Needed for Grammar, Clarity

I don't meet the requirements for editing a semi-protected article. Can someone please fix this for me?

In the overview (the first section, before the comments), the second-to-last sentence reads:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to not prosecute people solely for being in the country illegally – have no statistically meaningful impact on crime or reduce the crime rate."

Logically speaking, it's redundant to say they have no statistically meaningful impact on crime and also that they don't reduce the crime rates. But first, just grammatically speaking, it should read:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to not prosecute people solely for being in the country illegally – have no statistically meaningful impact on crime, nor do they reduce the crime rate."

This is still syntactically incorrect though, because as-written, this sentence means sanctuary cities reduce the crime rate, which isn't what the author was trying to say, because that is either incomplete or nonsensical. I'm pretty sure they were trying to indicate that sanctuary cities do not have different crime rates or lower crime rates (again, redundant) solely by dint of being sanctuary cities. Also, "statistically meaningful" is a weird way to say "statistically significant", so I changed that too. Finally, "designed to not prosecute" is a) awkwardly worded and b) confusing, so I fixed that too. All told, if I am interpreting the author correctly, a better way to put this is:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to prevent the prosecution of people solely for being in the country illegally – do not have statistically significant differences in crime rates when compared to non-sanctuary cities with comparable traits."

BUT! If I'm wrong about what the original author meant and they were trying to say that sanctuary cities don't impact crime rates in the larger region they are in, though, it should be:

"Sanctuary cities – which adopt policies designed to prevent the prosecution of people solely for being in the country illegally – do not have any statistically significant impact on regional crime rates."

AN ADDENDUM FROM ANOTHER VIEWER: I would like to know what type of statistical test and the significance level being employed to determine 'statistical significance/ non-significance'. Were the data employed fulfilling the assumptions of randomness, normal distribution and equal variances? If not, were they appropriately transformed? Simply failing to reject the alternative hypothesis does not necessarily mean the null hypothesis is correct - in conducting the test in this case, one has simply failed to reject the null hypothesis.

Please stop abusing inferential statistics to make political cases. The references provided are not academic, peer-reviewed papers. They are linked to think-tank and news agencies that have had political connections for decades and often employ poor statistical rigour or none at all.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.145.95.151 (talk • contribs) 18:05, November 30, 2018 (UTC)

Terms "illegal" vs "undocumented" vs "unauthorized"

Snooganssnoogans the terms "undocumented" and "unauthorized" are vague and false in many cases, and should only be utilized in direct quotes. An "undocumented student" cannot get financial aid, because financial aid literally documents who they are. An "unauthorized spouse" is not actually unauthorized because their marriage was legally conducted. I could continue further, but the point is that those terms are simply false to describe illegal immigrants and unnecessarily vague in many situations, and should therefore not be used. Bill Williams 21:50, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

"Unauthorized immigrant" and "undocumented immigrant" are far more common terms in the sources that we use in this article and they have the added bonus of not carrying the pejorative baggage of "illegal immigrant". It's kind of obnoxious to shoehorn "illegal immigrant" into sentences where the footnotes and cited scholarship do not use the term. As this is the long-standing language in the article, you should seek consensus before initiating a wholesale change of all the terms to "illegal immigrant". Snooganssnoogans (talk) 22:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The only factually accurate term is "illegal immigrant" and that was already used more in the article than each of the other two terms. "Illegal gun owner" is an accurate term to describe someone who illegally owns a firearm, but some of them have a warrant out for their arrest for owning the gun, and therefore calling them an "undocumented gun owner" makes no sense when their gun and them are both documented as being used in crimes. The term "undocumented student" is false if the student is documented, the term "unauthorized spouse" is false if the spouse was authorized to be a spouse, "undocumented worker" is false if they are documented, "temporary undocumented immigrant" is false if they are permanently without proper documentation, "newly undocumented" is false if they never had legal documents to begin with, and so on. Bill Williams 22:09, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I disagree that it is "the only factually accurate term," and so do the sources, and have thus reverted to the prior, longstanding version. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 23:43, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The "factually accurate" argument is undermined by the fact that "illegal" is typically used for criminal, rather than civil offenses. In the US, most "illegal immigration" is simply a civil violation (visa overstay or otherwise being "out of status") not a criminal one. Guettarda (talk) 17:26, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Most new illegal immigrants come across the southern border in criminal violations, and a civil offence is still illegal. It called illegally parking to park in an improper place even though that is only a civil violation. Bill Williams 18:00, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

This is untrue, or at least misleading; a large portion of unauthorized / undocumented immigrants end up in that situation due to overstaying their visas. This is one of the many reasons why the language used in sources has shifted (which is the real reason we have to reflect that language, of course.) --Aquillion (talk) 21:34, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Most new illegal immigrants come across the southern border in criminal violations - assuming this is true (can you share your source please?) newly arrived people are only a very small proportion of the undocumented population. Guettarda (talk) 23:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Yeah I know they are only a fraction of total illegal immigrants, but regardless of their method of entering, illegal immigration is a crime. I have already cited below that visa overstay or illegal entry might be a civil vs. criminal violation, but both are considered illegal. And again, "undocumented population" is a nonsensical term; numerous states allow them to obtain a drivers' license, use healthcare or education etc., all of which require some form of documentation. Many have already crossed the Southern border or are simply overstaying their visa, meaning either way they have been detained and documented or were literally given a document called a visa. Nobody uses the term "undocumented firearms owners" to describe people who buy guns without background checks, or people who bought a gun legally but then commit a crime and are no longer allowed to own them. Bill Williams 23:16, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

This argument is an example of the etymological fallacy: it "makes a claim about the present meaning of a word based exclusively on that word's etymology." We are supposed to reflect current usage, not argue against language change. TFD (talk) 00:08, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The current usage is actually the term "migrant"[1] which is even more vague and inaccurate, but at least that is not as vague as "undocumented". Look at almost any current news article, they all realized long before you that "undocumented" is completely inaccurate, so now they use "migrant" without any connotation of illegality. Bill Williams 18:00, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I really do not care about the term "unauthorized" vs "illegal", one is just a euphemism for the other, but the term "undocumented" is no longer as used in the media because of its inaccuracy, since most illegal immigrants are literally documented by the government, they didn't lose their visas or court papers, they just overstayed them or skipped their court appearances etc. Bill Williams 18:00, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

It took me just a minute to find an old AP memo describing this situation[2]

"Terms like “undocumented” and “unauthorized” can make a person’s illegal presence in the country appear to be a matter of minor paperwork. Many illegal immigrants aren’t “undocumented” at all; they may have a birth certificate and passport from their home country, plus a U.S. driver’s license, Social Security card or school ID. What they lack is the fundamental right to be in the United States.

Without that right, their presence is illegal. Some say the word is inaccurate, because depending on the situation, they may be violating only civil, not criminal law. But both are laws, and violating any law is an illegal act (we do not say “criminal immigrant”). Finally, there’s the concern that “illegal immigrant” offends a person’s dignity by suggesting his very existence is illegal. We don’t read the term this way. We refer routinely to illegal loggers, illegal miners, illegal vendors and so forth. Our language simply means that a person is logging, mining, selling, etc., in violation of the law — just as illegal immigrants have immigrated in violation of the law."

The next year the AP[3] states that the term "illegal immigrant" should not be used, but neither should "undocumented" because it is completely inaccurate, and this article uses undocumented on numerous occasions. The AP also states that "illegal immigration Entering or residing in a country in violation of civil or criminal law" meaning that a person who engages in such an action is an "illegal immigrant" even if the AP wants to use euphemisms. The term "migrant" is what is currently used the most by the media, and it is even more vague, so we should be using the most accurate term on the matter. Bill Williams 18:03, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

We have to use the wording used by the sources, regardless of our feelings about it. And most of them (as you've said) avoid "illegal immigrant" now for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is its inaccuracy. --Aquillion (talk) 21:34, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

so we should be using the most accurate term on the matter The most accurate term is undocumented, but "most accurate" is meaningless - policy says "verifiability, not truth" and for us to decide what's "most accurate" despite what sources say is a violation of WP:NOR. "Illegal immigrant" had the weight of common usage, not accuracy, but that usage is changing. And since policy has us follow current sources, I imagine this article will eventually be renamed. Guettarda (talk) 23:09, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

"Undocumented" has been repeatedly described as completely inaccurate by numerous sources, hence it is no longer used. "Illegal immigrant" is accurate but the media did not like its connotations, so now they use the term "migrant" which is still completely inaccurate. Migrants can come here legally or illegally, so classifying them the same way would make no sense for this article, which is on illegal immigration and therefore people who engage in it are illegal immigrants. That is just basic grammar, while "undocumented immigrant" is false, because most[4] illegal immigrants overstayed a visa, which is literally a type of document, meaning most illegal immigrants are documented. Furthermore, many work jobs with some form of documentation, utilize healthcare [5] or educational services [6] with some kind of documentation, or even obtain a drivers' license etc., all of which show how absurdly inaccurate the term "undocumented immigrant" is. The sources state that even if someone comes to the U.S. legally via a visa, if they overstay that visa, that is illegal and therefore as an immigrant they are now an illegal immigrant. I do find it ironic how these sourced from a few years ago all use the term "undocumented" when describing numerous ways in which illegal immigrants are documented, but that does not mean Wikipedia should use inaccurate terminology as well. I think the AP Stylebook is correct in its description of the term "undocumented" as inaccurate. Bill Williams 23:21, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] it is pretty clear that the terms "illegal immigrant" and "illegal immigration" are used far more often than the terms "undocumented", "unauthorized", or "irregular". Although usage for other terms has risen in recent years, all it does is mislead readers by using a term like "undocumented" when they are very much documented in numerous instances. Bill Williams 23:37, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Google searches show both reliable and unreliable sources. Ngram viewer is preferrable because it tends to show more literaturat usage. As you can see, undocumented immigrants has narrowly passed illegal immigrants.[19] The reason illegal immigrants remains high is that reliable sources cannot avoid using the term when decribing hate groups and political demagogues who make immigration an existential issue for the U.S. TFD (talk) 01:03, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Note the White House uses the term undocumented rather than illegal, although they also use the term unauthorized.[20] TFD (talk) 01:07, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't care what the White House says, that is not whatsoever an expert or reliable source on the matter. Multiple reliable sources have described why the term "undocumented" is highly inaccurate, and I have already explained in detail how it is literally false to call illegal immigrants "undocumented" when the majority are documented in multiple ways, including visas and documentation to receive a number of government services. Just because more sources use a false and misleading term does not necessitate that Wikipedia must do so. All it does is confuse readers who do not understand the obsessive need to euphemize by supposed experts, and these readers might think that illegal immigrants somehow do not have documents regarding one thing or another that they actual do have access to. It is not beneficial to readers to use the term "undocumented" vs. "illegal". Every single other illegal industry can describe the people in that industry using basic grammar, so "illegal immigrant" is again a simply grammatical exercise on the term "illegal immigration". Bill Williams 19:00, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

The majority of reliable do not use the term "illegal" any more, because it is derogatory. Our approach should be to reflect current usage. The White House incidentally is the seat of the U.S. government which deals with illegal immigration. Also, per WP:BLPCRIME, Wikipedia articles do not claim people of committed illegal acts unless they have been convicted. As the years go by, language usage changes. Terms that our grandparents used might now be considered offensive. We would be all happier if we just accepted it rather than try to stop the march of time. TFD (talk) 19:43, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Nobody is proposing the term "illegal", but the term "illegal immigrant" is basic grammar relating to the term "illegal immigration", so saying that "Wikipedia do not claim people [have] committed illegal acts" makes zero sense when the article is about the illegal act. This article is not specifying that John or Jimmy commit a crime, but it is obviously discussing the large scale act of illegal immigration, which is a crime engaged in by millions of people. I do not care about the technicality of "illegal immigrant" but it is just basic grammar, while for the vast majority of illegal immigrants, "undocumented" is a false term because U.S. federal or state governments document most illegal immigrants in some way. Bill Williams 02:27, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

So if we call someone an illegal immigrant we are not saying they immigrated illegally? TFD (talk) 03:03, 3 January 2022 (UTC)

How is the literal description of something like "illegal immigration" with the words "illegal immigrant" derogatory? It just seems like the use of "undocumented" is a euphemism, not that "illegal" is some sort of insult. MisterWat3rm3l0n (talk) 02:02, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Section out of date

Section talking about net reduction of undocumented immigrants since Great Recession is out of date. Footnotes 21-24 are all more than four years old. 2601:644:401:14B0:0:0:0:D125 (talk) 05:01, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Much of the data in the article is 4 to 6 years out of date. The source for one graph is this site: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/border-security/border-security-metrics-report, but this site has much more current data that used in the article. The article needs to be brought up to date.

Liberal bias in page?

Hello everyone,

In the page, right from the start (namely read the claims that cite sources 3-16 in the page, you will notice a clear positive, biased tone, promoting even, of illegal immigration) you can see that positives for illegal immigration are listed very early on, with little to no negatives listed. Anyone with 0 knowledge on the subject upon reading this article would probably gain a biased view on it. What do you guys think? 143.208.17.217 (talk) 15:48, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

1) WP:NPOV does not maintain that articles give equal weight to all viewpoints, merely that it gives due weight to viewpoints based on their prevalence in established scholarship. Expecting perfectly equal treatment at Wikipedia articles where established scholarship does not should not be expected. 2) You have provided no sources for additional data or scholarship that would, as you claim, provide possible negatives to be added to the article. If such scholarship exists, it should be easy to provide it. If it doesn't exist, then from where do we get such information? --Jayron32 15:53, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Responding to your point 1: I did not expect for equal weight on all viewpoints, I was stating my concern that there was apparently a bias in the wording and constructing of the page. The viewpoints that I mentioned could perfectly be in a separate section, and not shoved immediately when starting the page. WP:IMPARTIAL states that the tone of wikipedia articles should be impartial, and I was highlighting my concerns that I belive that it is not. Responding to 2: The main purpose of my comment is to highlight my concerns, not to provide sources for negatives. Amorgos420 (talk) 16:48, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

I appreciate your comments. The first paragraph of the lead ends, "Illegal immigration has been a matter of intense debate in the United States since the 1980s." The next two paragraphs then rebut the anti-immigrant position without actually explaining what that position is or who holds it.

I would prefer that the second paragraph explain the role that illegal immigration plays in the U.S., which is unique among Western nations. While the U.S. has programs for bringing in temporary workers into their country, unlike most countries it relies primarily on illegal immigration to fill unskilled labor vacancies.

Next we could present the anti-immigration views ("They're stealing are jobs! They go on welfare! They're committing crimes!") and then present expert opinion on these claims.

TFD (talk) 17:55, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

Amorgos420: You say "The main purpose of my comment is to highlight my concerns, not to provide sources for negatives", but my point was that your concerns may not match established scholarship on the topic. Articles on Earth do not, for example, deal with Flat earth prominently, because despite the loud volume of "flat earth supporters", there is basically no established scholarship that says the Earth is flat. If your concern about there being "little to no negatives listed" were a valid concern, it would be reflected in existing scholarship on the topic. If that scholarship doesn't exist, we can't very well include it in the article. --Jayron32 15:17, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

OTOH, the lead of the article on the Earth does not take up half its space with rebutting the flat earth theory. TFD (talk) 19:08, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't follow? I assume this is a joke but one can never be sure. The flat earth theory is mentioned exactly once in the whole article, and it isn't mentioned at all in the lead. --Jayron32 23:03, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I meant to say the flat earth theory does not take up half the earth lead. I try to avoid irony etc. My point is that the wording of the lead reads like a rebuttal of the anti-immigrant position. It could probably be re-written making the same points but in a different tone. TFD (talk) 03:41, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Paragraph 3 contains data that addresses the points in Paragraph 2. I fail to see how that is inappropriate. Paragraph 3 hardly has a tone beyond "Here's a bunch of data". It presents no value to that data. --Jayron32 11:17, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

Why is the second paragraph devoted to arguments of opponents of illegal immigration? The second paragraph of Earth is not devoted to the flat earth theory. The third paragraph as you say then debunks the anti-immigrant claims.

This is giving too much weight to fringe views. The article should emphasize the topic, i.e., illegal immigration to the U.S., rather than the "debate."

Better articles to compare this with include ones on evolution or climate change which have also "been a matter of intense debate in the United States." While those articles may mention the "debate," they don't spend half the lead discussing it. Readers want to know about evolution or climate change rather than the reasons why they are preferred to creationism or climate skepticism.

TFD (talk) 11:34, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

"Better articles to compare this with include ones on evolution or climate change" These are hardly comparable. Our current understanding of evolutionary biology depends on about 2 centuries of scientific research, and on data provided by paleontology. Our understanding of climate change depends on climatology and on data collected from all continents. Immigration and relative policies are not purely scientific topics, and there is no uniform way to estimate the economic or cultural impact of immigration. Dimadick (talk) 14:37, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

There actually is a lack of uniformity in expert opinions on evolution and climate change, other than a consensus that both of them are real. But like illegal immigration, there are fringe views that have no expert support. For example, the view that illegal immigrants are a "social and economic burdens on law-abiding natives" is just as false as the claim that evolution or climate change are hoaxes. TFD (talk) 17:00, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

A tiny edit needed in the Legislation section

In the paragraph that begins, "In 1996, Congress debated two immigration bills - one focused on limiting legal immigration, and another other focused on illegal immigration." Someone should fix "another other", presumably by deleting the word "other". I can't do it. Thanks. 76.236.220.28 (talk) 02:23, 18 September 2022 (UTC)

Done. 13:08, 18 September 2022 (UTC)