'No human being is illegal': linguists argue against mislabeling of immigrants

[umbertino]

‘Illegal immigrant’ phrase called neither ‘accurate nor neutral’ as activists turn up volume on call for candidates and media to stop using phrase

 

 

Lauren Gambino in New York

 

Sunday 6 December 2015 13.13 GMT

 

 

 

 

On a scorching day in May 2010, thousands of Latinos and immigration activists marched through the streets of downtown Phoenix in a mighty protest against SB1070, the so-called “show me your papers” law. Among the sea of protest signs was one with a more universal message: “No human being is illegal.”

 

In the years since, a linguistic dispute has welled up on the periphery of the highly charged debate over immigration reform – how to refer to the nearly 11 million people living in the US without legal residency?

 

“We don’t call pedestrians who cross in the middle of the road illegal pedestrians,” said Otto Santa Ana, a linguist and professor in UCLA’s Department of Chicana/o Studies. “A kid who skips school to go to Disneyland is not an illegal student. And yet that’s a sort of parallel.”

 

Santa Ana is among many linguists who argue that the phrase “illegal immigrants” is neither “accurate nor neutral”. Other law-breakers are not referred to as illegal, making immigrants an outlier in the naming system, he said.

 

 

The 2016 politics of ‘illegal immigrant’

Democratic frontrunner Hillar-y Clinton was recently drawn into the debate during a Facebook Q&A session when José Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and immigration activist, asked her to pledge to stop using the phrase “illegal immigrant”.

 

Vargas noted in the post that Clinton had used the term at a campaign event in New Hampshire. She conceded that it had been a “poor choice of words” and committed to banishing the term from her lexicon.

 

“As I’ve said throughout this campaign, the people at the heart of this issue are children, parents, families, DREAMers,” she wrote. “They have names, and hopes and dreams that deserve to be respected.”

 

Vargas said he was surprised by Clinton’s word choice, especially because she’s made her immigration plan a key pillar of her campaign.

 

“I am here illegally, without legal status, without authorization. Those are facts,” Vargas, who came to the US from the Philippines as a child, told the Guardian. “I as a person am not illegal because people can’t be illegal. Calling people illegal is not only factually inaccurate, it’s journalistically irresponsible.”

 

In 2011, Vargas founded Define American, an organization aimed at facilitating conversations around immigration. He recently launched a campaign called #WordsMatter with the goal of getting all the 2016 presidential candidates to commit to dropping the phrase “illegal immigrants”.

 

On Monday, Clinton’s challenger, former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, who decried her word choice after the New Hampshire event, joined the campaign.

 

“I have always called immigrants New Americans because that is what they are,” he said, taking the pledge. “Words matter and remembering that we were all once strangers in a strange land and that the US is made better in every generation by the arrival of New Americans is central to my campaign.”

 

Vargas wants candidates to understand that their words matter – even more so in a campaign cycle so far dominated by the bombast of a billionaire businessman who began his campaign by describing Mexican immigrants as “rapists” who are “bringing crime”.

 

A Donald Trump speech often includes disparaging remarks about “illegal aliens”, a term activists say is offensive and dehumanizing. But it’s not just Trump. Republican contender Jeb Bush, who once referred to illegal immigration as an “act of love”, has come under fire for using the derogatory term “anchor babies” in reference to children who are born in the US to undocumented parents.

 

 

“The Republican party is making a safe space for really racist undertones against undocumented immigrants and that is facilitated when the media reproduces this,” said José Luis Benavides, journalism professor at California State University, Northridge.

 

Benavides said that for many Americans, “illegal immigrant” is synonymous with Mexican, and specifically someone who crossed the US’s southern border unlawfully. But that’s an inaccurate framing of debate.

 

Since 2008, more immigrants have overstayed their visas than have crossed the border legally. Over the past five years, more immigrants have returned to Mexico from the US than have migrated north. Nearly 11% of the country’s undocumented population, an estimated 1.3 million, are from countries in Asia.

 

“The words that the candidates use frame the political conversation,” Benavides. “Using dehumanizing language then makes it easier for people to justify dangerous policies against a particularly group. Words really do matter.”

 

Growing disapproval

The term “illegal immigrant” wasn’t widely used to describe a population of people until the second world war, when the media began ascribing it to Jews fleeing to Palestine without authorization. In fact, it was Holocaust survivor and Nobel peace prize winner Elie Wiesel who first framed the debate: “You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is illegal.”

 

Beyond being inaccurate, the current vocabulary used to describe immigrants is polarizing, with politicians on the right preferring “illegal” and those on the left opting for “undocumented”, Santa Ana said. Instead, he advocates for “unauthorized”, which he says “underscores that they should not be here without highlighting criminality”, or simply describing the person’s immigration.

 

Several news organizations have dropped the term. The Associated Press struck the phrase from its style guide in 2013, opting instead to describe the circumstances of the immigrants’ arrival in the US. The news agency also concluded that “undocumented” was incorrect because many immigrants have some form of documentation but not the ones required for legal residency.

 

After the AP’s decision, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post and ABC followed in kind.

 

The New York Times and CNN have been under pressure by activist groups to remove the term from their style guides. The Times’ public editor, Margaret Sullivan, has addressed the issue a number of times, writing in a 2013 post: “So many people find it offensive to refer to a person with an adjective like ‘illegal’ that I now favor the use of ‘undocumented’ or ‘unauthorized’ as alternatives.”

 

For some, any descriptor reads like a euphemism for the uglier slurs used in the past to malign immigrants and Latinos in particular.

 

“Why not just call them immigrants?” suggested Gustavo Arellano, editor of OC Weekly and author of the ¡Ask a Mexican! column “That is what they are, whether they’re undocumented or not.”

 

 

US border patrol agents detain undocumented immigrants after they crossed the border from Mexico into the United States in August in McAllen, Texas.

Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/06/illegal-immigrant-label-offensive-wrong-activists-say

[bohica]

If you are here by hiding in the trunk of a big car you are here illegally.  You are therefore and 'illegal alien'.  Reality is reality.  If people do not like reality...basically too bad.  

[Yukon Silvermoon]

There are people who go through the process legally, and I would be PISSED if I went through the correct process, just for cheaters to get the same benefits as me. 

[DinarMillionaire]

I don't think anybody is claiming "humans are illegal". That's stupid. They're/we're claiming they're "here illegal." Which is why they are referred to as "Illegal aliens". Which they are, if they snuck in or over stayed their visa. This PC crap has got to go. Political Correctness is to the 1st Amendment, what gun control is to the 2nd.

[new york kevin]

They are all legitimate human beings. They are not all are legal immigrants. JMHO.

 

Yes, I just read the title.

Edited December 7, 2015 by new york kevin

[Xtaxguy]

New all time low, Umbertino:  dig up 5 year old lefty nonsense to try to justify the invasion of the US for years by illegals who will support the democraps who need them to strengthen their control by continuing to weaken the country.  But the wetbacks are a trivial problem compared to the islamic dirt bag terrorists who will mix in with them and with mideastern refugees.  You and your idiot ilk parse sentences while the worlds scum and leeches are sentencing you to death.  Get a clue!  Or go babble to your welfare line unemployable countrymen.

[Geck]

This PC crap has got to go. Political Correctness is to the 1st Amendment, what gun control is to the 2nd.

+1 to you, sir.

[Flash101]

Thank you Xtaxguy u took the same words out of my mouth +1 from me.

 

101

[jg1]

Uphold our current laws and they will self deport. NOW. Stop rewarding bad behavior. Stop giving out our tax dollars so I can get ahead. I'm living in crazy land. Stop the corruption and the theft of America. If there are less attempting to come to our country illegally, when a terrorist comes over he will be easier to spot. The welfare of your people Mr. President come first. Help us keep safe and prosper. 

Edited December 7, 2015 by jg1

[SocalDinar]

If you live here and came here Illegally you are Illegal, Why is that so hard to comprehend and say.  If you use our services and don't pay taxes ( not just sales taxes ) you are a burden on his country.

If you are a government employee who works for a self proclaimed sanctuary city you are a Traitor to this country.

[nstoolman1]

Not mine but I think it fits the situation. 

 

The Bird Feeder Analogy
I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with birdseed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop! It was everywhere, on the patio tile, the chairs, the table…everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. The other birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be…quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let’s see…..

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the tens and hundreds of thousands, millions. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because half the class doesn’t speak English. Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to ‘press one’ to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than ‘Old Glory’ are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties. When asked why they breed like cockroaches, the reply is that it is a cultural thing.

Just my opinion but, maybe its time for the government to take down the bird feeder. If you agree, pass it on; if not, continue cleaning up the poop!

[DinarMillionaire]

@nstoolman1

Great one!

Short version...clean the sugar off the picnic table and the mexi-ants quit coming.

[pattyangel]

PC just has to stop!!! Just calling it what it is. 

 

They're breaking the law of the land. 

[new york kevin]

I feel everyone in this topic. Didn't need the ******* comment.