What’s in a Name?

Some news organizations have done some soul-searching about what to call Ingmar Guandique, the Salvadoran recently charged in the 2001 killing of Chandra Levy. Calling him an "illegal immigrant" is problematic; although he entered the U.S. illegally, he sought temporary protected status offered to Salvadorans by President Bush, and had received permission to live and work in the U.S. while his paperwork was pending.

Besides, some fear the term "illegal immigrant" is stigmatizing, and gives ammunition to immigration hard-liners. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists says the term is "pejorative," inaccurate (because an immigration violation is a civil offense, not a criminal one), and "stereotypes undocumented people who are in the United States as having committed a crime."

Robert Steele, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, says "the goal is to make sure that journalists are specific and precise in the use of words . . . .There is a widespread and I believe logical argument that the broad use of certain terms is disrespectful."

On the other hand, specificity and precision can cut both ways. Calling someone an undocumented worker turns out to be problematic, too. As Darrell Christian, the editor of the AP Stylebook, notes, "not all non-U.S. citizens living in the United States would be considered workers, undocumented or not."

The expression "persons who are present in the United States without official authorization" is hard to fit into a two-column headline. "Undocumented immigrant" might serve, though it presupposes an intention to remain in the U.S. permanently and forswear allegiance to the old country. But is the term "undocumented worker" any more precise -- or is it sometimes an unjustified euphemism?