Talk:illegal immigrant

RFD discussion

The following information has failed Wiktionary's deletion process.

It should not be re-entered without careful consideration.

---

illegal immigrant

SOP: illegal (“being something illegally”) + immigrant (“a person who comes to a country from another country in order to permanently settle in the new country”). — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 01:10, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

There is certainly a lot of connotation with this, but it seems SoP to me. DCDuring TALK 03:45, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Delete, unless I'm missing something. It's a bit of a hot-topic from what I've understood. But as far as I know there's nothing dictionary-worthy about this phrase. Leave the non-dictionary stuff to other websites. We don't have to do everything. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:34, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Delete, SoP, one who has immigrated illegally. Compare "illegal parkers" (of vehicles), evident in Google Books. Equinox ◑ 16:51, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid that this term is considered worth banning, which seems to be an indication of idiomaticity. See news citation in entry. DCDuring TALK 16:12, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Failed. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 14:53, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

• Insane that we deleted this. This is a set term, and one that's received a lot of press attention. It's in the OED and other dictionaries. And it has a specific historic meaning w/r/t British Palestine. Deleting it does absolutely nothing to improve Wiktionary. Ƿidsiþ 15:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

  I agree. I don't know about the Palestine usage, but the brouhahas in the US about use of the term as pejorative (or at least politically incorrect). It has been "outlawed" by vote at some universities in the US. That alone is sufficient evidence, IMO. I'll get some citations for that phenomenon. DCDuring TALK 16:19, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

  E.g.: [1]. Ƿidsiþ 16:34, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Archived from RFD: January 2014

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

---

illegal immigrant

I believe that we erred in deleting this term. See Talk:illegal immigrant for the shallow discussion (in which I shallowly participated). See Citations:illegal immigrant for some newspaper evidence of the controversy surrounding the term in the US and the link on the talk page to an ongoing controversy involving the NYTimes. Also see “illegal immigrant”, in OneLook Dictionary Search..

We might also need entries for the synonymous terms with other valences, such as undocumented worker and illegal alien.

I don't see how we can justify not addressing a matter of this kind: it involves phrases that might otherwise be SoP, but have obviously taken on a life of their own, whatever their SoP origin. DCDuring TALK 17:05, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Keep: per DCDuring. television show is another good example. DC, I see you're coming round to my thinking, that there are words/phrases we just need to have Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 17:19, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Yes keep, I'm sorry I missed the original debate. Ƿidsiþ 17:21, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
• Restore. Matthias Buchmeier (talk) 17:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Sure, but do we really need undocumented worker? Compare illegal, illegal alien, illegal immigrant (this one), illegal worker, illegal immigration, illegal labor, illegal laborer/illegal labourer, undocumented, undocumented alien, undocumented immigrant, undocumented worker, undocumented immigration, undocumented labor, undocumented laborer/undocumented labourer... TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 19:00, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Don’t undelete. It is pure SOP. As I said in the RFD discussion anything can be used with illegal: google books:"illegal Jew", google books:"illegal logger", google books:"illegal distiller", google books:"illegal mother", etc. The controversy surrounding it is beyond the realm of what is relevant to a dictionary. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:09, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• @TeleCom: Only because it seems to be being advanced as a substitute for the others. IMO. Once phrases are attested in use AND become a matter of controversy, we should probably have them, possibly even before the one-year time period we have for neologisms. It helps keep us relevant for more than students and academics. DCDuring TALK 19:16, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

  @Ungoliant: If something is widely attested and is controversial as a phrase, why would we not have it? Separately the terms illegal and immigrant are not pejorative, but together they are. Isn't it part of linguistics to include such matters or is sociolinguistics beyond the pale? DCDuring TALK 19:16, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Restore per DCDuring. It's also idiomatic in some other languages - French, Dutch "sans-papiers", East Slavic "нелегал" / "нелегалка" (pejorative sense). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 20:00, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. By the way, I imagine the term "illegal immigrants" came before the term "illegals", right? ---> Tooironic (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

  Don't know. But illegal alien may have come before illegal immigrant, so illegals could have come that or any other noun phrase including illegal and referring to fur'ners. DCDuring TALK 22:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Here is the Google n-gram for 5 of the terms used. DCDuring TALK 22:29, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Don't undelete. Despite what one of the cites says, it is not synonymous with "undocumented worker". --WikiTiki89 00:14, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Interesting, "garden" and "vegetable garden" are not synonymous either, especially their Russian equivalents: "сад" and "огород" but it didn't matter to you when you wanted to delete "vegetable garden". Now that you wish to keep a word deleted, it does matter. Just an observation. Definition of "undocumented" @Merriam-Webster - "not having the official documents that are needed to enter, live in, or work in a country legally". --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The term "garden" includes "vegetable garden" (a "vegetable garden" is a type of "garden"), Russian "сад" does not include "огород" ("огород" is not a type of "сад"). --WikiTiki89 00:28, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Cambridge dictionary definition: illegal immigrant noun - definition in the British English Dictionary & Thesaurus - Cambridge Dictionaries Online - "someone who goes to live or work in another country when they do not have the legal right to do this". It's also defined in various official legal dictionaries, have slang and pejorative synonyms and translations. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:49, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

"someone who goes to live or work in another country" = "immigrant"; "when they do not have the legal right to do this" = "illegal". Classic SOP. --WikiTiki89 00:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

@Wikitiki: I wasn't advancing synonymy with undocumented worker as a reason to include [[illegal immigrant]]. Do you believe that it was an implication of something I was proposing?

That in the controversy folks are proposing that we all find other terms to cover at least part of the population normally covered by illegal immigrant is relevant to the setness/idiomaticity of the phrases involved. Whether the terms are synonyms, hyponyms, hypernyms, or names of sets with overlapping membership is immaterial to whether they are inclusion-worthy under the rationale that the phrase has linguistic attributes (eg, being pejorative, being legislated against) that are not present in the components. DCDuring TALK 01:06, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

If that is not your argument then I don't understand what is. Attempting to ban a phrase does not make it SOP. If I started a movement to ban the phrase "yes, but" and it became relatively popular, would we have to include "yes, but"? --WikiTiki89 01:18, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

@Wikitiki (after an edit conflict) It may even be SOP by this logic but the term is no worse than "apple tree" (a tree with apples) or "mammary gland" (a gland, which is mammary). It may be to too tiring to RFD all of them or checking if they have already passed it. I agree with Dan Polansky that many RFD's are just a waste of time of editors (I don't comment on obvious SOP). If they were such classic SOP, people wouldn't bother asking to restore or keep them. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

This is obvious SOP. People are asking to restore it for other reasons that I don't seem to understand. --WikiTiki89 01:18, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

See "WT:RFD#apple tree" above, which is also SOP from your point of view and, which had a lot of comments. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The arguments for "apple tree" are much different from the ones here. --WikiTiki89 02:01, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Which is? You have already explained your position about WT:COALMINE - if I understand correctly, if not for this rule you would delete "coal mine" as SOP. Other arguments: less translations? That's easily fixable. "apple tree" precedes "apple"? - "illegal migrant" precedes "illegal" (noun). --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:11, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

"apple tree" preceding "apple" in the meaning "tree" is not directly an argument for keeping "apple tree". That would only be the case if the meaning of "apple" that makes "apple tree" SOP is newer than "apple tree" itself, which may or may not be the case, depending on how you interpret "apple tree". illegal immigrant is not SOP because of illegal in the meaning "illegal immigrant", but because of illegal in the meaning "not legal" and "illegal immigrant" does not preced "illegal" in that meaning. --WikiTiki89 02:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Restore (Keep). I am not really sure, but per “illegal immigrant”, in OneLook Dictionary Search., Collins[2], Macmilan[3], and Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary[4] have an entry, and I am okay with following their lead. I also find it noteworthy that the noun sense illegal seems to be derived from "illegal immigrant", although I am not sure why I find it noteworthy. In any case, this keep is not intended to by driven by CFI's requirement of what CFI calls "idiomaticity" in Wiktionary:CFI#Idiomaticity. --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:12, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
• Undelete. It's a topical term. Donnanz (talk) 19:13, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  Define "topical term" and state its relevance as a reason for inclusion. Then maybe your argument would be taken seriously. --WikiTiki89 19:24, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  If you listen to the radio, read newspapers, watch TV, surf the Internet, or listen to other people, you will know that I mean. It's a topic that doesn't go away. Donnanz (talk) 20:15, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  Ok you somewhat did the first part (or at least now I understand what you mean by your made-up definition of "topical term"). Now, state its relevance as a reason for inclusion. --WikiTiki89 20:21, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  I think I have already done that. Donnanz (talk) 23:23, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  Where? --WikiTiki89 23:28, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  See above. Donnanz (talk) 23:36, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

  Look, I already told you that I don't see it. If you could quote the line for me that would help. --WikiTiki89 23:49, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

• Restore. As above. — LlywelynII 12:29, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
• Restore. Pure SOP, but the controversy implies it deserves a usage note, which is reason enough to have the entry IMO.​—msh210℠ (talk) 02:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Restored. (Yes, I'm putting in my own two cents simultaneously. But there was enough of a consensus even without me.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 02:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Offensive since when?

It seems only recently that this term has been derogated. Perhaps some explanation is required that, when found in older texts, it may be more neutral. Equinox ◑ 11:22, 30 July 2017 (UTC)

The Citations page has a quote from 1993 about how "illegal immigrant" is good, while "hypersensitive Hispanics" want us to say "undocumented worker". I suspect that this term had always caused some offense (and maybe came about in the Reagan years). cf (talk) 00:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)