I do find it funny that we're all up in arms about people being called illegal immigrants in the US but nobody seems to notice that MOST of the world has closed borders, maximum stay durations for non-residents, etc.

I will preface the rest of the comment with the following disclaimer: While I do believe in immigration controls, I AM NOT TRYING TO JUSTIFY ICE.

Obviously what ICE is doing is fucked up on a level of its' own and nobody should be forcefully deported without due process EVER, much less to a concentration camp in a random ass country, but at the same time, I think we can still differentiate between legal and illegal immigrants? And legally speaking, it's got nothing to do with race. The right wants you to think that latinos == illegal immigrants == criminals whereas there are plenty of white illegal immigrants (I've had a family member migrate to the US a long time ago and overstay their welcome and we're literally mayo colored) and most latinos are legal immigrants and most illegal immigrants aren't criminals either.

Either "illegal immigrants" needs to lose its negative and racial connotations, or there needs to be another term for people who are in the country illegally, but aren't actually actively committing crimes or anything, because such people will always exist, and there should be clear cut paths for residency for them, as well as humane paths to exit the country if they don't want to become permanent residents or aren't eligible for some reason. And the distinction between legal and illegal/undocumented immigrants needs to exist because... There are records about the former, they pay taxes, etc, but usually the latter don't pay taxes. They for sure don't in my country, they're hired without a contract and paid in cash. They aren't part of censuses. They don't receive benefits they should be eligible to if they were here legally.

I'm not talking about refugees either, I'm talking about people who come here for work, get paid near minimum wage for hard work that a citizen/resident would get paid at least twice as much for and the employer would have to pay taxes for. They get a raw deal themselves, they mess up the labor market for everyone else (hire an Estonian for 2000€ a month contractual monthly wage, he only gets ~1660 and you have to pay a total of 2676 (because taxes exist on both sides of the employment contract) OR hire an undocumented Ukrainian, pay him 800-1000€ and give him and 3 of his mates an apartment to live in that you pay a total of 500€ a month for). I used Ukrainians for the example not because of war refugees, but because at least before the war, I knew about more than one small-time employer using undocumented Ukrainian laborers.

There absolutely are issues that come from illegal immigration and just ignoring their existence doesn't help anyone. Instead the goal should be to help them become legal immigrants. And as much as it sucks, fully open borders would suck for any moderately wealthy country. Capitalists are gonna capitalist and if you suddenly increase a country's workforce by a huge amount, well, salaries for everyone are going down. Immigration controls are, in fact, kind of an artificial scarcity on the workforce. Obviously skilled labor from abroad is beneficial for an economy, particularly experts that are hard to train, but you also don't want to suddenly increase your workforce by 10% a year or something because of open borders. Salaries for everyone will go down FAST.