Why do americans call immigrants illegal when immigrants have a immigrant visa,illegals have no papers?

Question

as i observred here in y!answers.

Answer 1

This question seems to be based on a big heaping pile of bull$hit.

Answer 2

because americans assume that any questions about illegal immigrants is because the asker is an illegal immigrant.

Answer 3

false

Answer 4

Most with half a wit don't.

You are here illegally when you overstay your visa.

Until that time ...you are good to go.

Answer 5

Why? Because they are illegal.

OK I'll split the difference with you.

Let's just call them criminals and quit quibbling over terminology.

Answer 6

If they don't have documents, they are illegal. The only people muddling the lines between illegal and legal are the ones who want amnesty so they lump them all into one group. It doesn't take much common sense to distinguish the two.

Legal is what my wife did when she came from Mexico. She followed the rules and became a citizen. Illegal is sneaking across the border or overstaying your welcome then working under the table for an employer who could care less about the law.

Answer 7

People who have visas are not called "illegal". But technically, in order to immigrate to the US, you can walk in without any papers from Mexico or Canada or swim in from the Carribean, etc. Those people who come here without papers are called "illegal" immigrants.

Now illegal immigrations have ALWAYS been a problem in this country. Just ask the Native AMERICANS.

Answer 8

There are immigrants defined as those who's country of origin is not the country they are in. Those are legally here.

Then there are Illegal immigrants defined as those who sneak across the border without papers such as:  birth certificate, education, health exam, or money who's country of origin is not the country they wish to get paid to live in. They broke the law.

They are all IMMIGRANTS and USA is not their country.

Answer 9

I'm not confused...illegals are not immigrants

Answer 10

Politicians.  There are immigrants which are legal and then there are illegal aliens.  Far to many people get them confused.

Answer 11

A variety of newspapers such as the Washington Post and the New York Times found the term illegal aliens offensive to them.  They had used the term for many years.. now it was offensive to them.  So they began calling them immigrants.  That led to the obvious correction that immigrants means a legal movement to another area and illegal aliens were NOT legal.  The NY Times, the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the Los Angles Times, the Sacramento Bee, the Baltimore paper, Atlanta Paper and the whole McClatchy Newspaper Chain...  moved to illegal immigrant, in part, to identify illegal aliens.

IT gets dumber because those papers talk about the illegal aliens and no one knows what they are talking about.  Almost NO research is done in any of those papers, and they make one glaring mistake after another.  MSNBC, by the way, almost prances around when they call illegal aliens undocumented immigrants.  It does go on.. I get sick though and this is all I can do before I retch.

Answer 12

Because they are so frightened that their country is going down the tubes that they keep making the kind of mistakes that empires do when they are going down the tubes: daft wars and unsustainable occupation of resource countries, bureaucracy gone mad, blaming and banning the cause of the original success, free immigration, the prime freedom!

Answer 13

Only the confused think an illegal alien is some sort of immigrant.

Illegal aliens are most definitely not immigrants.

Answer 14

Because people get pissed at other people because they ask questions.

And everyone hates illegals, it's easier to assume that everyone is illegal.

Answer 15

They don't, unless you can prove it, which I don't think you can.