(ALIPAC mentioned) Use of 'illegal immigrant' remains popular, contested

The first time she heard the term “illegal alien” in the sixth grade, Amy Lee said she remembers thinking it somewhat “mean.”

In that respect the now 18-year-old El Centro resident considers the term “illegal immigrant” an improvement.

“It’s hard to say if (the term) is negative,” Lee said. “If they’re here illegally, then they’re illegal.”

Such thinking, while fairly mainstream, also seems to be coming under fire as of late. Immigrant advocates, as well as some ethnic media organizations, have been trying to get the term dropped in favor of the more neutral “undocumented immigrant.”

By JULIO MORALES Staff Writer, Copy Editor
April 12, 2013
Imperial Valley Press

Indeed, The Associated Press earlier this month announced they would drop the term from their 2013 AP Stylebook, which countless media outlets and universities across the globe use.

“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,” an April 2 blog post by Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll stated.

For Rinku Sen, who has devoted much time and energy trying to get media to drop the “I-word,” the AP’s reconsideration is welcoming.

“It’s been a long time coming,” Sen, executive director of the Applied Research Center, a nonprofit that devotes itself to racial justice, said.

The media plays a critical role in helping Americans make decisions about how they operate together as a community and as a country, she said.

The use of the “I-word” labeled immigrants in such a way that it “cut off reasonable discussion of immigration policy beyond the law enforcement dimension,” Sen said.

The center is behind the Drop The I-Word campaign, which specifically called for the term to be eradicated from public discourse.

In response to the AP’s action, the Americans for Legal Immigration political action committee announced it would use the term “illegal invaders” in its press releases and publications.

The ALIPAC is concerned that the term’s removal from public discourse suggests America is not being negatively impacted by illegal immigration, said President William Gheen.

The AP’s action, in Gheens estimation, resembles the steps taken to limit public discourse by the totalitarian regime in George Orwell’s fictional “1984.”

“This is newspeak,” he said.

Immigration, Gheen said, “needs to be discussed in a way Americans are used to: without anyone telling us what to think.”

The discussion over immigration, whether legal or illegal, is synonymous with the southern border, yet it hasn’t always been so.

Prior to 1943, more Border Patrol could be found on the nation’s northern border than on its southern one, said Luis Plascencia, an assistant professor at Arizona State University.

The southern border didn’t become a national concern until the 1970s, and since then has become linked with the public’s notion of illegal immigration.

“Therefore, it means it is a Mexican problem,” he said.

What is left out of such reasoning is the role that the nation’s laws and lax enforcement have played in producing legal and illegal immigration.

To label an immigrant in the country without authorization “illegal” obscures the “central role of the State (both the U.S. and Mexican State) in instituting rules and practices that encourage migratory movements, including the discretion regarding which laws to enforce and not enforce,” Plascencia contends in his 2009 essay, “The ‘Undocumented’ Mexican Migrant Question: Re-Examining The Framing Of Law And Illegalization In The United States.”

For that reason the term “undocumented immigrant” also falls short on accuracy, Plascencia said.

Although an “awkward” alternative unlikely to catch on with the wider public, media or academics, Plascenscia suggests a term that draws more on its technical and legal validity: “subject to removal.”

As an African-American, El Centro resident Steve McClain said he is sympathetic to individuals who face some sort of racial or ethnic difficulty.

While “illegal immigrant” may have been more appropriate 15 or 20 years ago, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find an alternative now, he said.

“Its continued use does stigmatize a group of people who are only looking for a better life,” he said.