That's the term I've finally decided to go with, as I did here. One microscopic step towards kicking the debate out of the perpetual orbit that I'm sure Karl Rove would prefer it remain in.

The PC folks hate "illegals" and some are even extreme enough to dislike "illegal immigrants."

And then the rest detest the "undocumented worker" euphemism.

I think the above is good common ground. It makes the point that these are, yes, people, while still retaining the point that the process by which they came to reside in this country was, no, not legal. It also makes it easier to express that many people share responsibility for immigrating them -- important both because we tend to forget that some small portion therein are pretty much captive slaves who did not jump the fence voluntarily, and the historical contributing factors that created the motivation for people to be illegally immigrated.

We owe it to ourselves as a country not to allow this debate to churn on and on making no progress, wrung dry of any real meaning by a media spin cycle, with politicians cherry-picking fleece out of the lint trap.