"I detest the term ‘illegal immigrants’. It’s a meaningless dog-whistle term used by racists and Right-Wing media quite deliberately, with the intention to turn public opinion against a group of largely desperate and endangered people fleeing the danger of violence or death."

I couldn't agree more with this. I've taken issue with yanks on the use of the word "illegals" as a noun. Calling a human being "illegal" is as dehumanising and, in this context as racist (as we use the term for "foreigners" only) as calling them any of those other names that we like to type as mostly asterisks.