Linguists Share Truth Behind Term ‘Illegal Immigrant’

Last month, Sojourners joined with other groups around the country to ask the Associated Press to change the guidance in their Stylebook that allows “illegal immigrant” to be used as an acceptable term to refer to a human being.  Following these efforts, the AP  issued this response, claiming that “illegal immigrant” is an accurate, neutral term. According to some linguists, this might not be the case.