Chasing the Dream

"Illegal alien" and "illegal immigrant" are more accurate terms to describe people who are living in the United States without permission of the law, says Jordan Sekulow, executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative Christian advocacy group in Washington, D.C. These people have violated the law and know they've done something wrong," he says. Americans feel very strongly about immigration, says Michele Waslin, senior policy analyst at the Immigration Policy Center, the research and policy arm of the American Immigration Council in Washington, D.C, "but in reality, few people understand how the system works or what's wrong with it."