If the word illegal derails conversations, use invader(s). No one can deny we’ve been invaded.
You’ll be controlling the high ground in any conversation about border insecurity, fundamental change, fast & furious, it takes a village, we’re not a Christian country, executive orders, the economy, burial of public education, prison population, social security, welfare spending, street crime, automobile insurance, sharia law, election fraud, sex trade, pedophilia, etc, etc and so on.
Try it out. The invasion has stained everything from the white house down.
They are not workers, undocumented or not. People who just visit the US are not allowed to take jobs.
They aren't even illegal immigrants since you need a Green Card to be an immigrant of any kind.
Visitors ~ and they have a home to go back to ~ and should go there. Even if they had visas they would expire.
The crowd worrying about "illegal" are trying to misdirect folks from the fact that these are simply visitors who forgot their visas and they must return to pick up a visa ~
Obviously we need a suitable punishment for visa overstays too ~ I've been thinking of a prison directly on the border. On the US side it has bars, electrified concertina topped fences, guards with guns, dry, dusty, desolate, nothing pretty about it. On the Mexican side it has a beer vending machine just beyond one of those large turnstyle cage things the NYC subways used for years and years. To get to the beer you have to go through the turnstyle.
You can't get back in ~ but the door is open to Mexico just a few feet away.
This is called "Voluntary Deportation".
Foreign invaders.