# Why do people refer to illegal aliens as Undocumented?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-refer-to-illegal-aliens-as-undocumented/495529>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 6, 2009, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-refer-to-illegal-aliens-as-undocumented/495529 "2009-05-06T11:50:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 37

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**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\
**Post date:** [May 8, 2009, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-people-refer-to-illegal-aliens-as-undocumented/495529/37 "2009-05-08T15:58:22Z")

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> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> Framing a political debate is a legitimate tactic within reasonable boundaries. I don’t see **Shodan** et al. up-in-arms about the term “death tax,” which is exactly the same political tactic. For the various reasons offered—imprecision, awkwardness of calling a person illegal rather than an act, focus on the actual problem—I don’t think this re-framing is disingenuous or unreasonable.
> 
> I don’t think so. Which criminal provision do you think they would be violating?

Apparently none – I threw that out from memory because that’s the law our hiring packets mention, but on review I see that while it has criminal penalities, they’re not for simple presence.

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