Suggestions for a Term to Replace "Illegal Immigrant"
Suggestions for a Term to Replace "Illegal Immigrant"
Center For Immigration Studies
By Ronald W. Mortensen, March 21, 2012
According to Fox News Latino:
The Drop the I-Word campaign began two years ago by the online magazine Colorlines. Their efforts have targeted politicians and the media and urged them to stop using the term "illegal immigrant" and use "undocumented worker" or "undocumented immigrant" instead.
That might make sense if all people who are unlawfully in the United States were really undocumented, but that is simply not the case.
As I pointed out in "Illegal, but Not Undocumented: Identity Theft, Document Fraud, and Illegal Employment", people illegally in the United States have lots of fraudulently obtained documents. They have fraudulent "green cards", fraudulent driver's licenses, and fraudulent Social Security numbers. And they use them.
So "undocumented" is simply not an accurate term for illegal aliens. Perhaps the Drop the I-Word folks would at least consider using the terms "fraudulently documented immigrants" or "fraudulently documented workers" since these are more accurate.
But this still does not fully describe the situation that illegal aliens find themselves in, nor is it humane in its treatment of the victims of illegal immigrant criminal activities, such as job-related identity theft.
Advocates for illegal aliens would have us believe that these fraudulently documented workers are just good, hard-working people who aren't harming anyone. Of course that is pure bunk. All too often, their fraudulent Social Security numbers belong to innocent American children who suffer very real harm, ranging from having their good names destroyed to life-threatening situations when medical records are corrupted.
To better describe these inhumane, criminal activities of illegal aliens, Drop the I-Work advocates could refer to them as "fraudulently documented immigrants/workers destroying the good names and futures of innocent American children."
Since document fraud, Social Security fraud, and perjury on I-9 forms are all felonies, the more complete and accurate term would be "fraudulently documented immigrants destroying the good names and futures of innocent American children by committing serious felonies in order to obtain jobs."
Of course this is a mouthful, but the proponents of illegal aliens want to be as accurate and humane in their description as possible, don't they?
Admittedly, there may be some persons who are unlawfully living and working in the United States without any U.S. documents — no phony driver's licenses, no fraudulent Social Security numbers, and no fraudulent visas or green cards. In those cases, neither they nor their employers can complete I-9 forms as required by federal law for employment and employers cannot pay payroll taxes because there is no Social Security number. Maybe we should call these people "undocumented workers who are illegally working for crooked employers and cheating on their taxes."
Of course, the Drop the I-Word folks really don't care about finding a term that accurately describes people who sneak into the United States or who lie to consular officers in order to obtain visas under false pretenses. Nor are they interested in finding a term that accurately portrays the activities of people who commit felony after felony once in the United States in order to pursue lives that are built on fraud and falsehoods. If they did, they would simply stick with the legally accurate term as used in U.S. statutes — illegal alien.
The fact is that they want to force everyone to use phony, politically correct words that make illegal activity more acceptable in the eyes of Americans. They also want to be able to label anyone not using their politically correct term as racists, anti-Latino, and members of hate groups. But most callously and inhumanely, they and those who go along with them willingly do this at the expense of innocent American men, women, and children who are the victims of illegal alien job-related identity theft and other serious, felony crimes. Now who is inhumane?
source: Suggestions for a Term to Replace "Illegal Immigrant" | Center for Immigration Studies
