In an equally celebrated local case, the Newark Star Ledger and The New York Times referred to a Peruvian allegedly connected to a triple homicide as an "illegal immigrant." The Herald uses the phrase "illegal immigrants" in writing generically about the group. The editorial page has its own policies. It uses "undocumented" in editorials, but leaves columnists to our own usage.

I think that every group has a right to be called what it wants. Within reason. The problem is that reason is in the eyes of the beholder. It also changes with time. "Colored" was the word of choice among African-Americans when I was in high school in South Georgia. Try saying that today.

I grew up with "alien" and have written it myself. But today it offends many, if not most, of my fellow Latinos, and so its usage should be dropped. Some Hispanics can say wetback or cucaracha -- or alien -- if they want, but only if they are Hispanic.

"Undocumented" is too wishy-washy for me. Many of these immigrants have documents. They're just false. The Hispanic journalists group argues that it is not the people who are illegal, but their act. The distinction escapes me. The murderer is not a murderer, just his act is murder. Huh? An illegal immigrant may someday find a way to become legalized. Until he does, he is illegal to the courts and to me, even if I think the law should be changed, which I do.

I first heard "undocumented" years ago in California from groups advocating the disappearance of the border and reconquista. The groups have rightfully disappeared, but the word has stayed, now with a more beneficent than political meaning. It is that meaning, a personal sympathy for illegal immigrants, that drives the popular use of "undocumented" in South Florida, a community that is majority Hispanic.

The Herald cannot ride roughshod over local feelings and usage. I don't agree with journalists who think that ethics require working in a vacuum. That is self-righteous arrogance. The Spanish newspapers I published in Texas used "indocumentado." But a second community of readers find themselves marginalized in The Herald, a paper they see as having a pro-immigrant tilt. The use of "undocumented" is part of that. For the sake of all its readers and for accuracy, I would like to see The Herald go back and forth between the two phrases, as some papers do elsewhere. Solomonic? Perhaps. But the truth is, there is no truth. Or at least no single right answer.

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