I heard this term used on the CBS news Tuesday Aug-12th. Is this a new term to replace “illegal alien” or is it a new demographic classification?
The former.
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immigrant on3+78t this
website.
Lawbreaker.
Actually, the term has been in use for many years. For some reason, many individuals (of a certain political persuasion) feel the desire to give a “pass” to illegal immigrants, and so the term is used to make it sound like they’re not so different from legal immigrants. As if they lack “documents” thru some fault in the system, rather than the fact that they have knowingly broken the law.
I can’t figure out the reasoning behind this. Very few of these individuals would want to just open the borders. The best I can figure is that these individuals (of a certain political persuasion) can’t bring themselves to support the con side in an issue related to minorites. Smacks of intillectual cowardice and dishonesty.
It also smacks of intellectual cowardice and dishonesty.
An “undocumented immigrant” is an immigrant without the necessary documents to prove legal admission to the country. Yes, it’s sometimes used as a euphemism for “illegal alien,” but the terms are not synonymous.
There’s another thread by Eva Luna discussing the status of her grandmother, who may very well be a U.S. citizen, but nobody has the paperwork to prove it. She is an “undocumented immigrant”; she may be, technically, an “illegal alien,” or not. See the difference?
Polycarp: Sometimes, or almost all the time?
Yes.
Extremely often.
However, it’s not as if it is something that came up very recently out of PC-madness. It’s more like how you have to use “alleged” when reporting about an accused but unconvicted man. Until you determine that indeed the person is here illegally, he’s just undocumented. (And I have heard it equally often as “undocumented alien” and “illegal immigrant”. We get a lot of those here)
Besides you can also be a documented but illegal immigrant, e.g. you abuse a student visa when your real intent is to stay in the USA. You gots all your papers but are using them illegally. Have known a few Canadians and Brits playing that game.
Then there’s the not insignificant matter of applicants for political asylum, many of whom sneak over the border. There is a huge body of U.S. and international law dealing with victims of persecution and their treatment, and the U.S. has accepted responsibility for adjudicating each case on its merits. But technically, until each applicant is granted or denied political asylum (a process which can take years), these people are undocumented immigrants.
I’m guessing John Mace would not be a fan of the Centro Romero, the nonprofit up the street from my apartment serving Latino immigrants, whose motto is “Ningun ser humano es ilegal” [No human being is illegal].
Oh, and if you start me ranting on the people who would be here legally, and even have green cards and/or citizenship if the Federal Government got off its duff and processed their paperwork in a reasonable period of time, we’d be here all night. One of them is married to a childhood friend of mine; they filed for his green card right after they got married (he was in lawful status finishing his Ph.D., but if he’d defended his dissertation already, he’d have been out of status. Sometimes procrastination pays).
Three and a half years and one child later, he just got his green card approved a few weeks ago.
Well, let’s not beat around the bush here. Are Mexicans who sneak across the border “undocumented immigrants” or “illegal immigrants”? This is really what we’re talking about here. Of course there are some people who are caught in the system and might rightly be called undocumented immigrants. However, the term is generally used to refer to Mexicans (and Central Americans) who knowingly cross the border illegally.
I liken use of the term “undocumented immigrant” to saying that a bank robber has made an “unauthorized withdrawl”.
Eva: If the Centro Romero helps legal immigrants, I think that’s great. If they help people “no questions asked”, I’m fine with that, too. If they knowingly shelter illegal immigrants, then they are breaking the law. I would hope that the help they would give to an admitted illegal immigrant would be to assist that person return to his or her native country. Ninguna persona tiene la derecha de estar in este pais iligalmente.
Many of the Central Americans, until very recently, could easily have been legitimate asylum applicants. Mexicans aren’t the only ones who sneak over the border, you know. And Mexico ain’t exactly a paradise of open and clean politics, you know, so I wouldn’t rule out the concept of an approvable Mexican political asylum case.
Plus an estimated 1/3 of people who currently have no legal immigration status came legally to begin with, but then overstayed their visa/authorized period of stay for various reasons.
And it’s ninguna persona tiene el derecho de estar en este pais ilegalmente. (“no person has the right to be in this country illegally;” accent on the “i” in “Pais,” which I’m too lazy to copy & paste from Word right now). I am commenting only on the grammar/spellling of your statement, not on its truthfulness or objective morality. That would be a whole other thread.
Gee, John, I guess you diagree with Emma Lazarus, then.
I hope Lib is around; it’d be interesting to see his take on who has the right to be here.
Eva: You say derecho I say derecha, let’s call the whole thing off. Of course your’re correct, and you busted me on my attempt to play off the motto. I’ll proof read better next time!
Poly: I don’t know Emma Lazarus’ opinion on the matter, nor do I have any idea who she is, so I can’t comment. I know that many of the “extreme” libertarians favor completely open borders, but I don’t agree with that point of view. I don’t understand how a country can exist without borders. That might make an interesting GD thread…
I’m still waiting for someone to answer the question, in my earlier post, about Mexicans who sneek across the border. Asylum seekers, when doing so legally, go to the proper government authorities in order to seek said asylum. Sneeking across the border, and then going “underground” doesn’t count.
I wish I had the transcripts from the show. I got the distinct feeling it was being used as a substitution and not as a separate demographic description. Very much as John Mace described.
I don’t expect much from news shows but if this is true it lowers my expectations considerably. I don’t remember Cronkite reinventing the English language, and he is known for having an opinion.
{off topic}
Eva, I was a Legalization Officer back in 1986 (think IRCA). I was with INS for 5 years and in all the A-files I perused, I never saw this approach (and I saw some beauties, believe me).
Did you ever see one of these and was it successful?
{apology for off topic}
Emma Lazarus would be the lady who wrote the poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty (you know, "give me your tired, your poor, "etc.)
Nope, I never saw an attempt at a Mexican political asylum case, although I did interpret in quite a number of Guatemalan and Salvadoran ones, and a couple of Honduran ones. Plus I used to be in charge of coordinating all the State Dept. advisory opinions for the Office of the Immigration Judge in Chicago, so I read most of what came in and out. But having read bits and pieces over the years about Mexican government corruption and politically motivated murders, I don’t think it would be out of the question.
And John Mace, with limmited exceptions (Mexico isn’t one of them; they include situations in which the U.S. government has publicly recognized there is a serious refugee problem in a given part of the world. These used to include E. Europeans at refugee camps near Rome and Vienna, and Vietnamese/Cambodians/Laotians at refugee camps in Thailand), there is no way to apply for asylum unless one is already in the U.S. AFAIK, and I’ve spent most of my career working with the immigration system in various capacities, there is no way for a Mexican to apply for asylum from within Mexico. So “sneaking across the border” for many people is the only way to do it. And yes, Mexicans are a large proportion of those who do so, but they are far from the only ones. Guatemalans and Salvadorans also schlepped all the way across Mexico, and then crossed the U.S. border. That takes some real determination. Back in my Immigration Court days, we even got asylum applications from Kosovo Albanians who had snuck over the Canadian or Mexican borders; apparently they had an easier time getting visitor visas to Canada or Mexico. Never a dull moment at that job, believe me.
P.S. There were even a couple of large class-action suits in the late 80s/early 90s on behalf of Central Americans who had been denied asylum, alleging that the U.S. Government had based their decisions primarily on foreign policy considerations rather than the actual merits of each person’s claim of persecution. The settlements so far have involved temporary and/or permanent residence for the class members. I can look up the details tomorrow if anyone’s interested.