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You miss the point. A person cannot be illegal. Acts are illegal, some objects are illegal to possess (still the act of possession is illegal not the object really) but human beings (persons) aren't illegal. The terminology is to suggest their existence, and not just location, is illegal. There is illegal immigration but not illegal people. If you can grasp this feat of grammatical understanding, you can see how undocumented aliens or immigrants makes more sense.
It's not a trick, a ruse, by some opaque and largely clandestine thought control project enacted by evil-doers and their lazy cronies. It's just making sense and avoiding a logically embarrassing misnomer.
AN illegal alien... AN.