Despite the obvious free speech concerns, UCLA’s undergraduate student government unanimously passed a resolution last week to declare that any use of the term “illegal immigrant” is now deemed racist and offensive. It is an example of how anti-discrimination policies are cutting deeply into free speech. Millions of people in this country are indeed here illegally. While many would prefer to use “undocumented workers,” many others believe that these individuals are illegal by definition and should not be allowed to circumvent immigration laws. It is a worthy debate with arguments on both sides. However, I am very uncomfortable with students (who historically have been voiced for free speech) declaring that use of this descriptive term is now considered racist or prejudicial.
The resolution, entitled “Drop the I-Word,” stated:
“[W]e are aware that certain racially derogatory language used in media, political discourse and other institutional settings has historically bolstered the foundation for racially harmful actions, including racial profiling practices, punitive policies targeting socially marginalized groups, hate crimes and violence . . . the use of the term illegals (the ‘I-word’) and its derivatives when referring to people dehumanizes and divides communities, contributing to punitive and discriminatory actions aimed primarily at immigrants and communities of color . . . undocumented students at UCLA and across the UC have expressed their concerns and fear with the recent appointment of Janet Napolitano, former US Secretary of Homeland Security, as the new University of California President…”
The students also declared “Journalists have an obligation to use neutral language that promotes democratic dialogue and upholds professional ethics and standards, and the term illegals is incorrect and inaccurate usage, as well as unfair and offensive.” Some news organizations have agreed not to use the term while others have objected that the status of many of these individuals is by statute “illegal.”
My concern is that such declarations chill speech by declaring certain words to be de facto racist or prejudicial. We have seen recently students leading fights to limit speech, including the recently successful campaign of Jewish French students to punish people for speech on the Internet. While many prefer to use “undocumented workers,” others find that description as inaccurate and want to refer to the illegal status of the individuals as lacking entry papers or permission to remain in the country.
What do you think?
Lurching from one ditch to another. Unstable. Not a good sign.
Meanwhile, bans on free speech are going the other way in Canada. The valid and accurate term Israeli apartheid has been banned from use at certain colleges and universities, with “punishment” (read: harassment) for those who do. The group Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA) has been banned from several campuses and falsely labelled as “anti-semetic”.
Amazing how the definition of a “law” changes things….used to be if you couldn’t walk a straight line, you were drunk, then we got measurements of drunkenness….at one time you could be .08 and you were “ok”, then the “law” changes…bingo, now your drunk & a criminal…
Or if your Rita Mirembe Revell, Grand Daughter to ex-President Ron Regan, you can have a special session of Congress to put you at the top of the immigration list…(while bumping the bottom person off)…and become a “legal” citizen…..imagine that!
So if the “law” changes for ‘illegal aliens’ then they could be regular immigrants like the rest of our ancestors….or would there still be people calling them criminals?!?!?
lets not hurt anyones feelings, don’t go away mad just go away
Students were historically for free speech in the ages of war and the draft and legitimate global conflict, simply because students were liberals who opposed these things. In today’s world, what do young liberal students have to oppose? Not war, their president is the warlord. No, rather “social injustice.” Which essentially means the existence the GOP and of Fox News. Thus, speech control now serves their aims because all the perceived “great injustices” of the world center around a lack of thought control and PC speech rules.
I had an experience in Rome, GA where I had to take a cab back to the airport. The cab driver did not speak a word of English, but I speak enough Spanish so I got to where I needed to go. I think it was a safe assumption to say that the driver had NO US license, and was here illegally. So I told the airport FBO, to call the police and check this guy out. Hopefully, he was arrested and deported ASAP since he was violating multiple laws. Of course, these rather ignorant students think that our laws do not apply to illegals. He was also a lousy driver too.
The Daily Bruin could increase its readership and educate the students, which is of course the role for a campus newspaper, by having a contest to rename criminal activities that do not prejudice people against them unfairly. Drug dealers can become undocumented pharmacists, car thieves can become undocumented car owners, bank robbers will become undocumented account holders, and the list is almost endless and more importantly entertaining.
Friggin Mexicans. Friggin Chinese. Border rats. Jack Mehoff without a visa. Harry Rectem without papers. Wop.
Um… they “should” be viewed negatively and discriminated against…. they are here illegally. They thumb their noses at US immigration law every day they wake up and choose to continue violating the rules…
If such a status becomes known to me, or when discussing them in an abstract way… I certainly discriminate against people who are blatantly evading and breaking the law. *shrug* Nothing racist or unfair about that…
I’m not seeing how the term illegal fosters “racism” though, or how using a different term would change a racist’s viewpoint.
*eh… kids. They sometimes do dumb things.
Atnor wrote: “they “should” be viewed negatively and discriminated against…. they are here illegally. They thumb their noses at US immigration law every day they wake up and choose to continue violating the rules…”
I guess you don’t personally know these illegals. Many of them were brought here by parents when they were children. This is the only home they know. They go to the immigration office, but are kept in perpetual hold status as an illegal. They are not thumbing their noses at US immigration. They are saying, “I want to have a driver’s license and work like everybody else.” Immigration says no, we have to send you back. But they never do. There is no home to send them to. This is their home.
The immigration system if the most broken of all our governmental systems. The way to fix the problem is when there are enough Congressmen and Senators and the President to agree to have a path of legality for everyone here in this country. Too many people are screaming to secure the border first, so nothing gets done. No reason why all solutions and concerns cannot be done at the same time.
Re: davidm2575’s reply
Many of them “are” here illegally by their own choice, by their own willful decisions, and I dont support rewarding people who actively choose to evade and ignore the legal immigration system. I think those decisions should have serious consequences, a big one being they should lose the privilege of being eligible for a “path to citizenship” or a “path to residency”.
As for the offspring…their parents are the ones responsible for the tough situation their children find themselves in. Looking for someone to blame? It’s the parents breaking the laws, not the people with the sovereign country quite appropriately deciding who, how and when people can enter.
It’s tough for them, no question, and if I were one of those kids, I’d be pretty ticked off at my parents for putting me in such a bad situation.
Unfortunately, I think their best option is to leave, get their immigration status resolved, get in line, and come to this country legally. It definitely is a tougher path than just letting them stay… but it is a path. That it’s so difficult is largely their parent’s fault. They’ve put their children in those unfortunate circumstances.
And while I really do feel for them, fixing their parent’s bad parenting decisions should not be US policy. For one, it encourages future families to enter illegally, compounding the larger problem. US policy would essentially be telling them, “If you dont want to participate in the existing system and decide to go ahead and break our rules, dont worry, your kids will be able to stay if they hide long enough, ( and we probably wont punish you either, even when we find you)”. That seems backwards and counterproductive to me. and I think it hampers any smart, solid immigration policy reform we might need to actually implement.
Also… I saw a couple other references to it… but as part of my original comment, I didnt mention it directly but I do agree people who provide employment to illegal labor are a major part of the problem, and I completely support more enforcement and penalties, including jail time, for such cheating employers.
I dont want to “secure the border” or “round ’em up”… but I dont want to reward rule breaking, and I think it’s a good idea to make it very, very difficult to reside and be employed in this country without a legal status, and if you’re caught, that you’re expelled more quickly than we do nowadays, and that there are certainly more serious consequences to those choices.
Atnor wrote: “Unfortunately, I think their best option is to leave, get their immigration status resolved, get in line, and come to this country legally.”
You make it sound so easy. Imagine you are 40 years old with no family left alive here. You know no country but this one. You have been trying to get immigration to fix your problem, but all they do is have hearing after hearing and nothing gets done. You have no money to leave and go to another country because you cannot get steady work. You must constantly work under the table at day labor and what not. Even if someone were to give you money to go back to your native country, you can’t leave because you can’t get a passport. Your native country doesn’t know who you are. This is how broken our system is.
Atnor wrote: ” I think it’s a good idea to make it very, very difficult to reside and be employed in this country without a legal status…”
It is somewhat inhumane to think this way. Regardless of “legal status,” these are PEOPLE you are talking about. So GIVE THEM LEGAL STATUS. The government should be able to take their information and say, “okay, yes, I know you now and I know where you live. Here is your work visa, and here is what you need to do if you want to stay here.” Voila! Now they are legal.
Whenever the law gets it wrong, there will be civil unrest. When the immigration laws get fixed, nobody will even be talking about this anymore.
Reply to davidm2575:
40 yrs old? And here through no fault of his own? Violating the rules for over 22 years, and in all that time he cant get his immigration status resolved? It’s the government’s fault and responsibility? *sigh*
If we need to help such individuals get out of the country easier so they can try to enter legally… sure, that might be a reform I could get behind.
There is nothing “inhumane” about that kind of thinking. People make choices – those choices should have clear consequences. They do have another choice – enter legally, or stay in their country of origin. Instead… they’ve opted for a third choice… thumbing their nose at the legal system we’ve setup, and actively choosing to purposely evade it. I have zero interest in rewarding people who make that decision by giving them the exact thing they’ve decided to break the rules to get.
Atnor wrote: ” They do have another choice – enter legally, or stay in their country of origin.”
I was not clear in the case I described about the 40 year old. That person was brought here by his parents. So it was not through his choice. You think it is just fine to blame the parents who are nowhere to be found. I say the humane thing is to recognize this person who desires to work and desires to have a country.
Atnor wrote: “… thumbing their nose at the legal system we’ve setup, and actively choosing to purposely evade it.”
No, this person goes to immigration, who just leads them on a wild goose chase of hearing followed by more hearings over several decades. How tempting it is for him to just “evade the system,” but he wants to work steady and live like all his other neighbors do.
Whether you like it or not, these illegal aliens are you neighbor, and you just sound like you don’t really care about the problems he has.
Even when dealing with people who choose to come over illegally, do you really know their situation? What causes a person to risk life and limb to come to this country? What causes someone to leave family to do this? Surely things were bad to cause them to do this. I think anyone with this kind of gumption probably is the kind of person I would like to welcome here as my neighbor. He is probably a lot better than many of the lazy kids growing up here who are more interested in updating their Facebook page than getting a job. You don’t want to reward them? I say, yes, let’s reward them. Let’s give them a path to be a productive member of our community. Clearly they want to be here, to live with us. They chose us. All we have to do is say yes, welcome.
Reply to davidm2575:
Cool… I just disagree. Your example guy should take some personal responsibility and get his situation resolved. It doesnt take 22 years to leave the country voluntarily. If it does, as I said, I’m happy to support fixing that problem and helping him leave so he can then try and enter legally. But even if getting him out of the country over 22 years is an actual problem…. letting him stay, for the reasons I mentioned, is, imho, bad policy and not the best of bad alternatives.
Why does the parents not being around not make it still their fault? Their bad decision to bring this man to this country illegally is the reason he’s in the unfortunate situation he’s in. Their still being around or not seems irrelevant.
“Whether you like it or not, these illegal aliens are you neighbor, and you just sound like you don’t really care about the problems he has.”
His problems regarding his legal status in the US, and especially those people who choose to come themselves… are of their own making, or his parent’s making. I answered what choices I think he has available to him, and how I feel about people who chose the “break the rules” option. They arent “easy” paths, but they are paths. Looks like we come down on the wrong side of that question, and I’m OK with that.
I dont need to know “their situation” to determine I think their choice was wrong, or that at the least, it should come with certain consequences. I understand that they “want” to come live here…. but if they dont choose to enter and engage the system we set up for that specific purpose, then no… I dont care much what they want after that point. I dont want to “welcome as a neighbor” people who actively choose to break the rules like that, and I dont think people who make that choice are admirable or people I would hold in much esteem, regardless of how hard a worker they are. I dont care if they have more drive than some stupid kid on Facebook… the kid on Facebook isnt actively breaking the rules, he’s just a stupid privileged kid. If that kid doesnt want to get a job… well, there should be consequences for that set of decisions too.
It’s not “follow the rules… unless you’re a hard worker… then do whatever you think best”. Those certainly arent people I’m interested in rewarding.
Thanks for the discussion 🙂
Atnor, our back door neighbor was a VP of an S&L back in the 50s when they could only give loans for homes. He broke the rules and gave a loan by way of fraud to our next door neighbor who owned a nursery and used that loan for his business. Mr. Tucker got FIVE years in prison for breaking that rule, which was later changed under Reagan so that it was now LEGAL for S&Ls to do what he had done. That cost him his job, his home, broke up the family, and made it near impossible for his kids to go to college. That he was a decorated WWII combat veteran made NO difference and the US had NO concern for what happened to HIS family after all he had literally shed his blood for the USA.
So I have absolutely NO concern or sympathy for those who STEAL the right to live and work in the US without having contributed one sacrifice for this country! I do have some sympathy for the poor kids, but they suffer for the choices the parents make in any criminal activity. There is nothing that my sympathy can or will change.
BettyKath, me too. David you’re right this time. (:
Atnor, I don’t know if it is you lack empathy or are unable merely to see past your biases and positions.
These children who were brought here and are now adults not only don’t have a home to go to from the country of parents origin, usually not even knowing anyone there as David has said they often don’t even know the language so you would want them sent back to a place they do not know and with a good chance no one they know, and no way to communicate because they do not know the language. Yep. That’s punishment allright.
If you can – take a moment to feel what that would feel like.
Yes the parents were wrong but that does not mean that the children have to take on the sins of their fathers because people think our immigration policy is bad, immigrants are bad and just send em all back to where they came from.
Leejcaroll, I guess that we do not need bilingual classes any more since all those kids don’t speak their native language any more. Of course, it is absurd to think that a kid who comes here at age 16 has no ties or memory of his home country! Only idiots would meet that criterion, which might explain why so many people are for this DREAM Act since the supporters of this bill have no memory before age 16 too. Then you will find as I have that as you age, you lose your home except for the one you make as an adult. It is called growing up.
I have never heard of any law that grants rights to those who steal something and keep it for a period of time. So if an illegal family steals a car as a graduation gift for the new high school grad, the lucky kid should keep the car because taking it away would cause a hardship on the student since it would make getting an education harder. The illegals have stolen something that they have no moral or legal right to have, the right to live and work in the US. Just because they have not all been caught as of yet, does not grant them any rights to the stolen property.
david looking at the proposed DREAM Act says something totally different from what you assert. To think that a 16 year old has NO ties or memory of his home country is absurd. Then to think that even young children who came here as infants have no ties to their home country is also absurd since the overwhelming majority speak their native language fluently, talk to family back home such as grandparents, uncles, aunts,etc. If what you said is true, we then no longer need bilingual education since all those illegal kids would be speaking fluent English. You cannot have it both ways.
It might make sense only if the kids affected started school here from kindergarten and thus have certified school records to back their story up. Absent that, all others should not be allowed to stay since we have NO idea of when they came here because they did it illegally. In fact, the last amnesty resulted in fraud on a massive scale that doubled the estimated numbers who would qualify. It also stimulated a rush to come in illegally since all who made it across the border in time got the amnesty too.
Then there is the problem we have on the border here where Mexican children commute to school across the border every day, and then graduate from high school, and in Texas get in state tuition as well as now the chance to get US citizenship. They get free education, free health care, food stamps, and welfare and jobs too, I know of a welfare worker who was told to NOT investigate a woman who claimed to be a US citizen who spoke not a word of English, who was supposedly a single mother with her husband standing outside waiting for her to get her welfare benefits. This fraud is widespread here. I am simply tired of it, and even MORE tired of the illegals thinking that they are entitled to a good life by breaking the law.
There is a negative connotation in ‘illegal.’ If we had no welfare state, no minimum wage and sound money there would be no barriers to welcome workers. Meanwhile, back in reality, they are technically ‘illegal.’
I saw this coming a couple years ago. Now, PC folks who know me, know not to try and change my language. However for those who don’t, living in the PC Capital of the world[Madison], when I say “illegal immigrant,” I would get that classic PC condescension look and then hear, “undocumented worker.” I then ask, what if they’re not working? Are they undocumented unworkers.
There is no one more supportive of Mexicans in this country, illegal or otherwise. I would love to support a program where they get immediate citizenships if we’re allowed to deport 17 million deadbeat citizens. But, they are here illegally and being the grandson of 4 legal immigrants, I know the difference.
The irony does not escape me. Latecomers to this continent came here a few hundred years ago. Then the newcomers tell a people whose forebears settled the place more than fifteen thousand years ago, they are here illegally.
True enough….
AY,
If they are undocumented and thus here illegally, then it’s an appropriate status.
I agree with the sentiment that using the term “illegal” portrays these illegal immigrants in a negative light, but illegal is not only accurate, but the most accurate term available. What we need are changes to the law so any of these illegal immigrants can go to the immigration office and get on a path toward citizenship. Then we would not be having these silly arguments about what to call them.
Gene,
What this language does is make them a specific status…. Sure there are proper channels to go through… But for a lot if folks…. It’s I got mine screw you attitude…. Regardless of how it’s stated…..
DEB,
Exactly how did your folks get here? Ellis Island…. Mine on my dads side came over as property owners…. My moms side we indentured servants… Why does a new person to this country affect you?
Reblogged this on Brittius.com.
“others find that description as inaccurate and want to refer to the illegal status of the individuals as lacking entry papers or permission to remain in the country.”
Yep. Euphemistic language helps no one but those seeking to obscure meaning. Illegal means against the law. Immigrant means a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country. The term illegal immigrant is accurate and descriptive, not racist and discriminatory. It would apply no matter the person’s race. “Mexican” is not a race. It’s a nationality. A WASP from the U.K. here with no papers would be just as much an illegal immigrant as a Hispanic Mexican here without papers.
PC language stupidity strikes again.
B.S……….. Students passing legislation doesn’t change reality!!! Illegals……. Get the F**K out!!!!
And how did most of our forefathers get here by the way…. Come on… Do the right thing….