It's No Fun Being an Illegal Alien

[Ubiquitous]

"Oregon on Tuesday took two major steps to help integrate some of the
thousands of immigrants living in the state illegally," the Associated
Press reports. The Beaver State's governor signed a law permitting what
the AP calls "people who can't prove citizenship" to pay in-state tuition
at state universities, and lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow,
again in the AP's words, "people living in the state without
documentation" to get driver's licenses.

What's notable about this story is actually the AP's choice of language.
"Immigrants living in the state illegally . . . people who can't prove
citizenship . . . people living in the state without documentation."

Why all the verbiage? Why not just say "illegal aliens"?

Because, according to the AP's official blog, the wire service has just
updated its stylebook. Here's a statement from AP exec Kathleen Carroll:

The Stylebook no longer sanctions the term "illegal immigrant"
or the use of "illegal" to describe a person. Instead, it tells
users that "illegal" should describe only an action, such as
living in or immigrating to a country illegally.

Why did we make the change?

The discussions on this topic have been wide-ranging and include
many people from many walks of life. (Earlier, they led us to
reject descriptions such as "undocumented," despite ardent
support from some quarters, because it is not precise. A person
may have plenty of documents, just not the ones required for
legal residence.)

Those discussions continued even after AP affirmed "illegal
immigrant" as the best use, for two reasons.

A number of people felt that "illegal immigrant" was the best
choice at the time. They also believed the always-evolving
English language might soon yield a different choice and we
should stay in the conversation.

This column also doesn't care for the term "illegal immigrant," also
because it's imprecise. But the problem is with the word "immigrant," not
"illegal."

An immigrant, according to Merriam-Webster, is "a person who comes to a
country to take up permanent residence." It's pretty clear who counts as
a legal immigrant: anyone who is a naturalized citizen or permanent
resident alien. (One might also include those, like Sen. Ted Cruz, who
were natural-born but not native U.S. citizens.)

But at what point does someone who is in America illegally become an
"immigrant"? The term no doubt is descriptive in many cases; if you've
lived in Oregon for years and are planning to attend Oregon State, you're
probably planning to stay for good, even if you're in America illegally.

The word "alien," however, simply denotes the disjunction between
citizenship and current location at any given time. You're an alien if
you're in the U.S. and are not a U.S. citizen or national. You're a legal
alien if you have an unexpired visa or a green card. You're an illegal
alien--one with no legal right to be in the country--if you entered the
U.S. without a visa (which is a crime) or stayed in the U.S. after your
visa expired (which is not).

The AP already had a policy against using "illegal alien," we suppose
because it thought readers weren't bright enough to distinguish Mexicans
from Martians. Sadly, like most of our media institutions, the AP is less
interested in clarity than in political correctness.


--
"Right now, the president is not solving the budget chaos because he
doesn't want to cut federal spending. That's the truth. And the spinners
are misleading you. They are lying to you. That makes me angry. So you
saw that and will most likely see it again in the future."
-- Bill O'Reilly