'Illegal': Slur or accurate label?
Articles
... "It's easy to dismiss someone when you use a disparaging term such as 'illegal immigrant' or 'illegal alien,' " surmised [Jerry] Gonzalez, who oversees the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, an Atlanta-based political action committee...
"I don't think so at all," said Victor Davis Hanson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming." "It doesn't describe a person in a negative, pejorative way. It means they don't have U.S. citizenship and that they didn't come to the United States in a lawful manner."
" 'Illegal' means you came as an immigrant, and broke the law," said Hanson, who founded the classics studies department at Fresno State University "It's a precise term, and not just for Mexicans."
D.A. King, founder of the American Resistance Foundation, a Marietta-based group that seeks tougher enforcement of immigration laws, said the term "undocumented workers" is "a politically correct invention to soften the brutal fact that these people are breaking the law."...
The Centers for Immigration Studies, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, credits the Immigration and Naturalization Service (now the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services) with inventing the term "undocumented workers" during the Carter administration.
"People wanted a P.C. word that downplayed the illegality of illegal immigration," said Mark Krikorian, the center's executive director. "It has no basis in law." To his knowledge, there aren't any other campaigns to encourage use of "undocumented workers." Not that it's needed...
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