Immigration Reform 2013: The Term "Illegal Immigrant" is Perfectly Acceptable

Last week, the Associated Press dropped the phrase "illegal immigrant" from its stylebook on the grounds that "illegal" should (in their words) "describe only an action" and not a person.

The noun doesn't describe the person as a whole any more than the adjective does. It doesn't put them in a box or take away their humanity, and we can go on to describe them as doing things that don't involve emigrating or studying or drumming, etc.