Approximately 11.5 million foreign-born persons in the U.S. are living here illegally. But that does not mean that they’re illegal.

The Associated Press made a decision this week to eliminate the term “illegal immigrant” from its Stylebook, according to a blog post published on Tuesday by Senior Vice President and Executive Editor of the Associated Press, Kathleen Carroll.

In the past year, several college newspapers, including Technician, decided to stop using the term as well, instead utilizing phrases such as “undocumented” and “unauthorized.” In its decision, the Associated Press claimed that use of the term “illegal” to describe a person was not only dehumanizing, but also “linguistically inaccurate.”

Some may claim that this is merely an attempt at being “politically correct,” but the change in terminology carries with it a deeper connotation.

Historically, the term “illegal immigrant” has been used to describe demographic groups that were unwelcome in the country or region, which they wished to enter without proper documentation. The term first surfaced in the 1930s to describe Jewish people who immigrated into the British Mandate of Palestine without authorization.

Immigrants who enter the United States without the proper documents are guilty of breaking the law, because you must have the proper documentation to stay in the U.S.

However, in a different light, people are guilty of breaking the law all the time, and are not considered criminals. In high school and college, underage drinking is not an uncommon problem. People who drive at speeds over the speed limit are not illegal people.

Also, if you drive or fish without a license, are you an illegal driver or illegal fisherman? Rather, you are unauthorized to drive and unauthorized to fish — in the same way that foreigners staying here without proper documentation are unauthorized to live here.

It is the same way with undocumented or unauthorized immigrants. They are living in the U.S. without proper identification or with expired documents, but their very existence is not criminal. Even those who are deported are subject to civil procedures, which are not the same as criminal hearings.

This is the approach that the Associated Press took when it decided to drop the term “illegal immigrant,” stating it prefers to describe a behavior rather than a person. “Illegal” denotes criminal activity. Thus, when media outlets in the past used the term to describe undocumented immigrants, the general American public felt subconsciously hostile toward a common criminal known as the “illegal immigrant.”

As a bilingual section that strives to represent the Latino community in a positive and accurate way, we at Bienvenidos stand behind the Associated Press’s decision to drop the “illegal” adjective from immigrants who live in the United States without authorization. Since AP currently includes about 1,400 newspapers across the U.S., this change has the potential to influence millions of readers and their thoughts about immigrants without authorization.

We hope that, while it will not decriminalize the act of illegal immigration, it will promote a greater understanding between the immigrant and resident communities.