No, there's no such thing as illegal aliens to the Star--at least you wouldn't think so by reading its coverage of the biggest social shift in the United States in decades. Twenty million illegal immigrants didn't come across the border--but 20 million "undocumented" ones did. Consider this excerpt from an article called "County's Latino population continues to increase."

He suspects the Census Bureau did a better job in 2010 than in the past at reaching out and counting Latinos, including undocumented immigrants. The 2010 Census did not ask for a person's legal status. A 2006 study by the Urban Institute estimated there were as many as 50,000 undocumented immigrants in Ventura County.

"Illegal aliens" is too offensive, so everyone caved an now we use "undocumented immigrants" or "undocumented workers." Continuing that trend, what term will be pressured to use next? Undocumented citizens?

To its credit, sometimes the Star uses "illegal immigrants," which is a fair term. It's accurate.

But "undocumented" is often a lie--many times illegal aliens have plenty of documentation; it's just stolen or fraudulent. In other words, it's illegal.

The root of all this wordplay obviously is to stifle debate on illegal immigration. If we can't agree on a label, or if we agree on a label that minimizes the problem, it's tough to discuss it.

The Star is, in effect, taking sides when it uses the preferred language of one side of the illegal immigration debate.