After hundreds of people were caught trying to slip into Canada on cramped, rusty old boats in 1999, the CBC received a few letters about a term some people claimed had entered English without proper authority: illegal migrants.

You keep mentioning 'migrants'. That's strange because when I learned English it was 'immigrants'. Are you rewriting the English language then? I sure wish you'd update the dictionaries as soon as possible as well. Good luck.

According to the 1998 Canadian Oxford English Dictionary, a migrant is someone who travels from one place to another. An immigrant, on the other hand, is someone who immigrates — which is defined as becoming "a permanent resident" of a country "other than one's own native land."

Both words have Latin roots. Migrate means to "move" while immigrate means to "move in."

IMMIGRANTS

Most people, including the staff at Citizenship and Immigration Canada, associate "immigrating" with a formal application accompanied by necessary documentation. If someone is caught living on Canadian soil without permission, the term illegal immigrant (or perhaps "illegal resident") would be appropriate. If someone is simply caught arriving without the right papers, the term "illegal immigrant" would be debatable.

MIGRANTS

The people Canadian authorities detained off the coast of British Columbia were journeying secretly, not actually "immigrating" through proper channels. Indeed, it's believed many were hoping to make their way into the United States at a later date. Therefore, they could be accurately described as illegal migrants — although some other less lofty expression might work equally well.