Slow down, PC police

Letter date: 
Monday, October 12, 2015
Letter publisher: 
East Oregonian
Letter author: 
Gordon Graham
Letter body: 

I could probably make a career out of trying to add some balance to the immigration views of the East Oregonian, but it’s probably not advisable since they purchase ink by the barrel. However, I have to say something about the Guest Column from Antonio Sierra on Saturday, October 10, 2015.

Antonio summarizes and supports the recent decision by the Associated Press to stop using the term “Illegal immigrant.” Mr. Sierra then extends that logic to the term “alien” or, more specifically, “illegal alien.” The proposed “acceptable” substitute term is “undocumented immigrant.” The AP style book change and every piece that has been written to support it are all attempts to blur the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, as if their presence here in relation to the U.S. immigration law shouldn’t matter at all.

Webster’s Dictionary defines “illegal” as “not according to authorized law” or “not sanctioned by official rules.” Black’s Law Dictionary defines “illegal alien” as “an alien who enters a country at the wrong time or place, eludes an examination by officials, obtains entry by fraud, or enters into a sham marriage to evade immigration laws.” Doesn’t leave a lot to the imagination, does it?

By all means, if the term “alien” conjures up images of little green men or spaceships (or even Ray Walston for that matter) then let’s drop it from the definitions used to describe this population. Even though the current immigration statutes of the United States expressly define an “alien” as meaning “any person not a citizen or national of the United States” and there are hundreds of references to “alien” in the statutes, we might as well call them something entirely different simply because the “political correctness police” say that language may be inflammatory.

The point is that these are not terms that have “become increasingly antiquated” as Mr. Sierra contends. As a matter of fact, if we were going to follow the AP’s logic that “human beings can’t be deemed illegal, only the acts they commit” we would have to call that population “undocumented immigrants who are here illegally” in order to be fair to the rest of the population that is here legally. Rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? I’m sure the AP simply forgot to add that extension to the acceptable alternative description that they proposed for their style book.