Published Wed, Oct 21, 2009 02:00 AM
Modified Tue, Oct 20, 2009 09:42 PM
'Illegal alien' costume raises a furor

The Halloween costume has been pulled by Target, Walgreens and eBay, though others continue to sell it.

BY LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ

MIAMI -- A Halloween costume that depicts a space creature in orange prison garb emblazoned with the words "illegal alien" is reigniting debate over a long-used term based on the U.S. government's designation of all foreigners as aliens.

The dispute has immigrant advocates calling on retailers to pull the costume from its shelves, while a group that supports strict immigration laws say it's all a to-do over nothing, with freedom of speech being turned upside down by political correctness.

Since Friday, when the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights in Los Angeles first raised the issue, companies including Target, Walgreens and eBay have removed the costume from their inventory. Still, many local retailers continue to stock the costume that also comes with a "green" card -- which technically makes the alien legal.

Target said it sold the costume online only and that it was posted by accident, though it did not meet the company's standards; eBay said it asked sellers to remove the costume because it "does not allow items that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance, or promote organizations with such views."

Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesman for the immigrant coalition, said the costume "perpetuates this idea we have about undocumented immigrants as alien foreigners, strangers, scary."

Cabrera said he knew the costume could be taken as a play on words but the jumpsuit was too close to what many immigrants must wear in detention centers, "where they can spend months at a time, and where there is a lot of suffering."

"That the creature was holding a green card was a stab at a [broader] community," he said, because it suggests even with a legal document, immigrants are still scary criminals.

William Gheen, head of the North Carolina-based political action committee Americans for Legal Immigration, said efforts to get stores not to sell the costume amounted to an attack on freedom of speech. He urged Americans to buy the costumes in protest.

"I looked at the costume and thought it was kind of funny. The only thing that wasn't funny was how many illegal immigrants are in this country," said Gheen, who has given speeches suggesting Latin Americans are bringing an epidemic of tuberculosis to the U.S., despite government figures showing the illness is at an all-time low.

Gheen said he didn't understand why people would have a problem with words used in federal law.

"This is a battle over psycholinguistics," he said, referring to the study of the relationship between language and the psychology or behavior of those who use it. "Nobody is supposed to be able to use the words 'illegal aliens' ... except in the government literature."


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