Even with several major news organizations deciding to
reduce or ban its use, the term “illegal immigrant” is still the phrase
newspapers most often use to describe foreigners living in the United States
without proper documentation. But over time, according to the Pew Research Center, there have been some shifts in the
language applied to those at the heart of the immigration debate, as words like
“undocumented” or “unauthorized” have begun showing up more frequently.
With Congress now considering a major immigration bill, we
compared newspaper language in the period from April 15-29 in 2013 with three
other two-week periods—in 1996, 2002 and 2007—when immigration-related
legislation was also in the news.
During all four time periods, the term used most frequently
in newspapers was “illegal immigrant,” although there was some ebb and flow,
according to Pew Research’s LexisNexis search of 19 related terms in almost
9,000 articles.
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