Illegal aliens are what they are.
Illegal : against the law
Alien : foreigner
Foreigners here against the law are illegal aliens.
I know that the immigration activists and their Democrat enablers don’t like the term “Illegal Alien” because it hurts their feelings. But technically, they do have a point. You can’t illegally be a foreigner. Being a foreigner is not an illegal status.
However, a foreigner being illegally present in the country is a legal status and needs a proper reference term. So, properly, any more “humanizing” term the Democrats want to use in substitution for “alien” - let’s say “Bullwinkle” - should be preceded by the adjectives “illegally present.” As in “illegally present Bullwinkle.”
Non-citizen doesn’t work because all persons who are not United States citizens, no matter where they are, are “non-citizens.” And like alien, as discusssd above, that is a perfectly fine designation as long as the person is not illegally present in the United States. Using “non-citizen” without any preceding adjectives to indicate their status with regard to presence in the United States obscures and confuses the principal reason for taking notice of them at all. No. The only way “non-citizen” works is when it is preceded with the term “illegally present.”