Thread: Fight brews over forcing library to use ‘illegal alien’

By Cristina Marcos - 05/16/16 05:42 PM EDT

A fight over illegal immigration is making its way into a typically noncontroversial annual spending bill to fund legislative branch activities.

Republicans are trying to reverse a decision made by the Library of Congress in March to stop using the term “illegal aliens” in its subject headings, which it deemed “pejorative,” and replace the phrase with “noncitizens” or “unauthorized immigration.”

But Democrats, led by members of the Congressional Hispanic, Asian Pacific American and Black caucuses, are protesting the inclusion of a measure to force the Library of Congress to use “illegal aliens” again in the annual legislative branch spending bill that provides funding for the institution.

In a letter to members of the House Appropriations Committee, the chairmen of the three caucuses urged the panel to eliminate the provision ahead of a Tuesday markup of the bill.

“Dated and dehumanizing terms such as ‘illegal alien’ and ‘alien’ have taken on a highly negative connotation and perpetuate the denigration of immigrant communities,” Reps. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) wrote in the letter on Monday.

Democrats’s objections foreshadow debate that may follow the bill when it reaches the House floor for a vote.

GOP lawmakers opposed to the change made by the Library of Congress have proposed a variety of legislative options to return the use of “illegal alien,” such as a bill introduced by Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) last month.

“Hopefully this bill will give Washington the push needed to stop thinking up the most politically correct ways to describe illegal immigration and start thinking about solutions to address it," Black said in a statement at the time.

Meanwhile, Rep. Julian Castro (D-Texas) has proposed legislation that goes beyond the Library of Congress’s decision and would remove the word “alien” from federal law entirely. Instead, immigrants would be referred to as “foreign nationals” or “undocumented foreign nationals.”

It’s not the first time in recent days that lawmakers have debated changing descriptions in federal text to accommodate concerns that they are considered outdated or pejorative. Congress last week sent legislation to President Obama that eliminates remaining use of words like “Oriental” and “Negro” in federal law.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/28...-illegal-alien

referred to as “foreign nationals”

Paleeze, they are "illegals" - not authorized to be in the USA.

eliminates remaining use of words like “Oriental”

What is the problem with Orientals - Asia is a large continent including India - Oriental makes a distinction to their blood line area.

All this stuff is to keep people busy and diverted from the real ugly stuff like too many foreigners - legal & illegal in our country taking our jobs, overpopulating on our dime & not assimilating to American ways. And the fact that our border has been wide open for years with all kinds of scum crossing and being protected, diseases and all.

It is unreal that "criminal" illegals are allowed to walk free w/o being deported & we actually have "sanctuary cities" with American politicians protecting them over protecting American citizens. OUTRAGEOUS.

They should use the most correct term... illegal invaders!

http://www.alipac.us/alipac-compensa...invaders-1615/

By ANDREW TAYLOR, ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — May 17, 2016, 3:19 PM ET

Republicans on a powerful House panel Tuesday narrowly defended a tea party-fueled move to tell the Library of Congress how to label immigrants living in the country illegally.

The GOP move is designed to force the Library of Congress to retain the term "illegal alien" for cataloging and search purposes, reversing the library's plan to replace "illegal alien" with less prejudicial terms like "noncitizens" or "unauthorized immigration."

Appropriations Committee Democrats tried to defend the library's move, which came in response to a petition from the American Library Association, to change the immigration-related search terms. They lost by a 25-24 vote.

Conservatives were angered by the library's move and sought the provision, which was added to legislation funding House and Senate operations and congressional agencies like the library.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said the library should "continue with its process of choosing subject headings without political influence."

But Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., author of the provision, said the library had overstepped and had privately acknowledged its error.

The library said in a March 26 statement that "the phrase illegal aliens has taken on a pejorative tone in recent years" and added that "aliens" can be confusing since it can also mean beings from another planet.

The bill funding the operations of Congress is the most obscure and little-watched of the 12 annual appropriations bills, making news only because it contains a freeze on lawmakers' pay and permits sledding on the Capitol grounds.

The panel also agreed by a nearly unanimous voice vote to boost their office budgets by 1.5 percent. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., sponsored the $8 million boost, saying that a clampdown on lawmakers' office budgets has led to rapid staff turnover and a loss of expertise as salaries haven't been able to keep up with Washington's high cost of living.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireS...terms-39174495

By Elizabeth Llorente
Published May 17, 2016Fox News Latino

A new fight over the term “illegal alien” brewed in the House of Representatives, where Democrats unsuccessfully sought to do away with the term, losing Tuesday in a 25-24 vote.

Republicans had included a provision in a spending bill that sought to restore the use of the term in the Library of Congress, which decided in March to drop it in subject headings and instead use “non-citizens” and “unauthorized immigration.”

The decision by the Library came after a campaign by college students and librarians across the country objecting to the term, which they argued is pejorative.

Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, and several other Democrats in the House sent a letter to the House Appropriations Committee asking the panel to remove the illegal alien provision from the Legislative Branch Appropriations bill. Members of the congressional Hispanic, Asian-Pacific, and black caucuses signed onto the letter.

Castro introduced a measure last fall to remove the term – which has been used in U.S. documents since the Naturalization Act of 1790 – from official U.S. regulations, laws and documents.

“It’s outdated,” Castro said in an interview with Fox News Latino. “The term is an anachronism. When we think of the term ‘alien’ now we think of people who are from outer space.”

Castro said the term is dehumanizing, and that the government’s continued use of it puts it behind the American public, which increasingly has abandoned it.

“Over time, the way we describe people can and does change,” said Castro, vice-chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Proponents of the term call the effort to end its use political correctness. They say the terms that critics use instead of “illegal alien” sugar-coat the status of people who are in the United States illegally.

The government also uses the word “alien” to refer to foreign-born people who are here legally.

Rep. Diane Black, a Tennessee Republican, introduced a stand-alone measure in April requiring the Library of Congress to return to using the term “illegal alien.”

“As the name implies, Congress has a proper oversight role with the Library of Congress,” said Black in a statement to Fox News Latino. “By stripping the use of the terms ‘alien’ and ‘illegal alien’ from its subject headings, the Library has chosen to bend its language to the whims of leftist groups and mask the grave threat that illegal immigration poses to our economy and our national security."

She added, "Congress must use every tool at its disposal to stop the Library of Congress from engaging in this political correctness run amok.”

In a letter to the House Committee that dealt with whether to move forward with the budget provision, Castro said the move to drop the term from official government use was not without precedent.

“As meanings of words evolve with the times, so should our usage of those terms,” the letter says. “The Library of Congress recognizes that our nomenclature evolves and has adjusted terms and subject headings accordingly in the past.”

“For example, the term for African-Americans has evolved several times in the last 100 years. Throughout the 1900s, the Library of Congress used the term ‘Negroes,’ which was then changed to ‘Blacks’ and later to ‘Afro-Americans’ and finally to ‘African Americans.’”

Conservatives were angered by the Library of Congress' move to drop the term "alien" and sought the provision, which was added to legislation funding House and Senate operations and congressional agencies like the library.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/pol...illegal-alien/

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