Language won’t stop illegal invasion of America

Staff writer Antonio Sierra exposed himself as an illegal immigration advocate who used intellectually dishonest rhetoric to manipulate Americans into accepting foreign lawlessness in our country. His rant against legal language, citizens and immigration law was meant to shame Americans into a paralysis of self-censorship, but he will fail if we understand the tactics he used.

To elevate illegal invasion to the status of normal immigration, Sierra first tried to commandeer our terminology by convoluting logic. By re-labeling illegal aliens as regular “immigrants,” and using the fact that regular immigrants become citizens, he argued that illegal aliens are also de facto future citizens. Sierra also tried to blur the distinction between legal and illegal entry by calling any reformist legislation “anti-immigrant.” Confused yet? He hopes so.

As with other illegal alien supporters, Sierra dismissed criticism of illegal immigration by stating “No human is illegal” — a slogan that appears at every illegal alien rally. No border enforcer ever claimed that humans were illegal, but that they were sneaking illegally into the U.S. File Sierra’s criticism under “Diversionary Tactics,” and if Sierra ever confronts a burglar in his house, I hope he remembers his own adage that because this human is legally alive, he couldn’t have broken any law.

Lawbreakers typically feel bad or embarrassed when they hear an accurate description of their behavior, but this shouldn’t stop citizens from calling it as it is. If we applied Sierra’s sanitized and manipulative language to other forms of subversion, then drug dealers would be “undocumented pharmacists” and human smugglers would be “irregular tour guides.” It’s bad enough that propagandists are called “journalists.”

Lyneil Vandermolen

Tualatin