Undocumented

Political Rhetoric, 1979

Illegal. Not possessing legal documentation granted by a required legal process.

Although it appeared earlier, the term was popularized by US President Jimmy Carter, who instructed the term “illegal alien” be replaced when applying US immigration law. The current term arises from a 2013 suggestion by the Hispanic Leadership Network to US Republicans they use the term and drop “anchor baby”.

• https://oed.com/view/Entry/212594
• https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?&year_start=1950&year_end=2019&content=undocumented
• https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=undocumented
• https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/01/30/latino-group-to-politicians-dont-call-immigrants-illegal_n_2581096.html