So do the people who use the term “illegal immigrant” tack on the word “illegal” when referencing any criminal? The crime *is *relocating to this country without proper documentation, so I’d think the term undocumented immigrant would be sufficient. Would you refer to someone who has stolen a car as an illegal car thief?
Of course it is relevant, it is the very point of this discussion. Its not “whether” they are tossed in the “big house” as you so eloquently state, its why they CANNOT be tossed in the “big house”. They have not violated a criminal law. Anyone who you apply your personal bias against and claim to be “illegal” might actually be eligible for amnesty - they might in many other way be able to change their “undocumented” status and remain here by having a hearing at an immigration court. Until they have had such a hearing, you do not have any idea what their status is, all you know is that they are ‘undocumented’.
It’s a good point even if what they were doing was “illegal” we wouldn’t normally brand a person as an illegal such and such, but beyond that it is illegal only in the same sense a parking ticket is “illegal”, not auto theft. It is a matter of civil law not criminal law. And generally we don’t refer to violations of civil law as being crimes. not because they don’t violate a technical civil statute on the books, but because there is no criminal law against them, no criminal prosecution can take place for them, etc. So your analogy would actually even go one further, it would be an “illegal car parker” and not just for someone who actually parked a car somewhere they shouldn’t have and received a civil fine, but for everyone who might or might not have ever parked a car (as long as their skin is a different color or they speak with an accent) all before anyone ever issued a ticket or even saw a car. The people being broadly referred to as “illegal aliens” have not had their day in court, something essential to determine what their status actually is. Until that status is determined by a civil immigration court they simply are “unknown status” not “illegal”.
Since there are legal and illegal immigrants, a more accurate analogy would be that an individual possessing a stolen car would be an illegal car possessor.
And that’s a great example of why “undocumented” sticks in the craw for some people. An “undocumented car possessor” as an alternative term for a car thief just doesn’t cut the mustard, even though it is less pejorative. Even your use of the term “without proper documentation” seems to pretend that perhaps a stamp is missing or a bureaucrat mixed up a date rather than referring to an individual who sneaked in without even a cursory effort to follow the legal entry procedure.
It’s bogus to pretend that, because an individual has not had (or, more likely, has deliberately avoided) due process, “undocumented” is a preferable term. That’s ridiculous. If I want a society with fewer car thieves, rapists and murderers, it’s a perfectly acceptable use of ordinary language to use those terms as plainspeak to refer to the general category of folks behaving outside of the laws proscribing those activities. That a given individual might beat the rap or actually be innocent of the label totally is not a reason to refer to substitute a term of “undocumented car possessors/intercoursers/life takers.” The nature of the term, as used, implies a group of folks who are deliberately avoiding due process in the first place–and that’s the way the term “illegal aliens” is applied.
Equally, whether or not an ongoing stay in the US for someone who entered illegally is, of itself, a separate crime, it is the illegal entrance which attaches–appropriately–the label of “illegal” to the immigrant part, serving to separate out that group from those who entered in accordance with the law.
Contorting the language may make you feel better, but it is obvious to anyone that such contortions are done for a very specific purpose–to make an illegal entry seem somehow less…illegal.
I am reminded of those souls insisting the whole IRS structure is illegal. Same sort of effort at contortion.
Again with the comparisons of immigrants to thieves, rapists, and murderers. And you people are calling me shrill?
Some things our own history should have taught us about bigotry, unjustified prosecution of foreigners, etc. are obviously just above the grasp of some posters here and your point will probably never be accepted despite being true. They simply cannot look past their own bias to see the reality of the situation because it is more comfortable or convenient to assume something they are not personally in favor of must be a violation of a criminal law. Calling someone an “illegal alien” is actually the incorrect terminology in the vast majority of undocumented immigrants situations. People, even including many authors of US civil law everyone keeps insinuating are criminal laws, use the term “undocumented immigrant” because it is more accurate for the actual legal situation. Those who insist on “illegal alien” for reasons being stated here are actually the ones trying to misuse an incorrect term in order to cast a disparaging light on someone who is not known to be in violation of any criminal codes. It has nothing to do with political correctness it is simply a question of accuracy of a term that is used in too many cases to disparage an entire group of people of whom we have no idea of their actual current status. What they are actually saying with “illegal immigrant” might be more accurately said as “job stealer”, “damn foreigner”, “person I would never allow my daughter to marry”, “person I am afraid of simply because they come from somewhere else.” But for all intents and purposes they are, legally, civilly, and correctly, simply “undocumented immigrants”.
It would appear some of our ancestors squeaked through that second restriction.
I worked on this post for a while, and Crazyhorse pretty much said the same thing already, but what the hey.
The OP asked a question, one I believe has a factual answer, ad I feel like I never addressed it directly in previous posts, or maybe I tried but I wasn’t clear.
Q: Why do we use the term “undocumented.”
A: because on many occasions, that is the only fact we know for sure. Undocumented covers a broad range of possible immigration scenarios. The term “illegal immigrant” is an inaccurate description of many of those scenarios. Moreover, it is a legal conclusion, one which is quite premature in most cases where the term is applied.
For example: A person enters the country with a valid tourist visa, but is working illegally.
For example: a person enters on a valid tourist visa, overstayed, worked illegally for 10 years or more, and now is adjusting their status through marriage to a legal permanent resident.
For example: a person who enters in violation of the border inspection, but has an objective right to remain in the US through Asylum or Temporary Protected Status.
For example: A parent enters the U.S. legally, with their 8 year old child sent later with other relations who all enter in violation of Border inspection. Parent naturalizes before child turns 18. Child is undocumented AND a citizen.
ALL of these people are undocumented. Few of them have done any criminal act. In some cases, their presence is per se legal, in others it can be made legal.
“Illegal immigrant” is primarily an inaccurate description of known facts, secondarily pejorative.
Not to mention it would’ve been hard for the United States to restrict Mexicans from coming to Arizona, Utah, California, or Nevada before we took those states by force, from Mexico, in 1848.
You’d be surprised how many Arizonans who complain about Mexicans don’t realize that the land they’re standing on was Mexico just 160 years ago.
It is laughably, flagrantly, disingenuous and silly to pretend that the term “illegal immigrant” is applied to anything but overwhelmingly a group of folks who electively flouted US Immigration Law to get here. There is a substantial difference between use of the term as a collective and accusing a given individual of being illegal without knowledge of their specific case. As a collective the term is appropriate because it is accurate in the overwhelming main despite having occasional exceptions in the particular.
To Cisco’s protestations that, because I drew a linguistic-use parallel between how the term “murderer” is used instead of “life-taker,” I am somehow comparing immigrants with murderers as a behavioural pattern, I say: “Yes, that sort of fatuous and inaccurate deliberate misrepresentation is not only rhetorically shrill, it’s deliberately and inappropriately inflammatory.”
You know who you remind me of, Chief Pedant? Armin Meiwes. No, I’m not saying that you lure victims to your house, amputate their penises and pan fry them before slaughtering them and snacking on the remains for the next several months. GOSH! That would be sick! How dare you accuse me of such a thing? I’m merely saying you’re human, presumably male, presumably of European stock, two good eyes, capable of verbal communication, etc. To suggest any other motive for me to compare you to him in particular would be a fatuous and inaccurate deliberate misrepresentation that is not only rhetorically shrill, but deliberately and inappropriately inflammatory.
. . .
:rolleyes:
I don’t get your point but I commend your ability to turn a phrase.
Well said. Well said.
The point is you’re not a victim here like you’re pretending to be, and you know it. Stop acting disingenuous. You compared immigrants to thieves, murderers, and rapists, period. There’s no getting around that or saying you were just innocently doing it for “linguistic” purposes. If that were the case you would’ve used less emotional terms. But no, you knew exactly what you were doing. I like the ability of people on your side of the argument in this thread to accuse me of doing things they’re doing, over and over again. In your case, specifically - since you’ll pretend not to know what I’m talking about - saying things that are deliberate misrepresentations, rhetorically shrill, and deliberately and inappropriately inflammatory.
It is a lot sillier to generalize about groups of individual human beings, each with their own story and individual set of circumstances. It’s the foundation of racism, which is another reason the term is distasteful. But once again, it is lawmakers and law enforcement agencies who make the distinction “undocumented” very deliberately, and not out of political correctness, because it is a more accurate term to describe the legal situation of undocumented immigrants as a group.
Again, the building blocks of racism stand tall in those words, Chief. I suspect this discussion will continue to be an endless loop. The OP has asked a question and the answer has been provided with clear, well-cited information from all directions. You are dug in and holding on with nothing but your personal opinion on the subject so I’m considering the question answered unless the thread takes a new and interesting turn.
It’s possible, I suppose, that you are unable to understand the difference between a linguistic parallel to clarify the use of a term and the behavioural meanings of the terms themselves. Perhaps you have genuinely been offended where no offense was intended. If that is the case, I apologize.
(Here’s an alternate comparison: If I use the term “illegal road-crossers” as a broad catchment for the general category of jaywalkers wandering across roads between intersections, the facts that a handful of them have a legitimate reason to do so, that none of them have been proved to have done so illegally by due process, and that all of them subsequently behave lawfully–none of those facts make it inappropriate to use the term “illegal road-crossers” because it’s simply a linguistic shorthand for a category which, in the main, is accurate. This is quite a different thing from singling out a particular road-crosser and indicting him without due process.)
I suggest, however, it’s more likely you have recognized the weakness of your own position and, failing to find more cogent arguments supporting it, have sought refuge in distracting the debate by accusing me of making an implication that illegal immigrants are somehow behaviourally equivalent to murderers.
Whether the difference is simply beyond your ken or you actually feel it’s useful to pretend I have deliberately conflated illegal immigrants with murderers, I think I’ll let my participation go. I’m uninterested in a “debate” where either of those two circumstances is the case.
The term “illegal car possessor” wouldn’t make any sense to me. What is so illegal about the possession? Is the car stolen? Did the person in possession of the vehicle steal it himself? Are there drugs inside? Is the person driving without a license? If the person stole it I’d call him a car thief, and if the person were driving without a license, I would call him an unlicensed driver. I wouldn’t call the person an “illegal” anything because the term serves no purpose other than to be derisive.
Ah, so you utilize the term “illegal” as opposed to “undocumented” in order to emphasize the point that these immigrants run across the border screaming “F U, America.” Fair enough.
He’s not a murderer, he is an unauthorized population control specialist.
He’s not a burglar, he is an uninvited guest.
He’s not a drug dealer, he is a non-conventional pharmaceutical salesman.
Regards,
Shodan
Good point. An “illegal car possessor” may be someone who in good faith entered into a private deal for a car he could afford, but that car turned out to have been stolen at some point in the past, possibly a fact not known to sellor or buyer.
Or suppose a man has obtained a valid work visa, as does his wife. Is he expected to know that he needs visas for their preschool children as well? What if he doesn’t? What if he gets false information from what he thinks is a trustworthy source and relies on it?
What if he sneaks over the fucking border like most of them have done?
Regards,
Shodan
Shodan. We have in common, I believe, that we claim to be Christian, to be following Jesus Christ.
So, rather than being raggy at you once again when we take opposite sides on a political issue, let me ask you to do something: read Luke 10:25-37 and Matthew 25:31-46. Then tell me what you think they have to say on the subject of people south of the border violating our laws in search of work. (I’m serious; I really want to see your perspective, not engage in a sniping contest.)
This is a bit of a different question…
“Illegal alien” is preferred by the politically correct (and that includes politicians, of course) to avoid conveying offense, not because it’s inaccurate.
If the discussion is personal conviction about what’s right, that’s much easier than what governments should do. Certainly at a personal level my own conviction is much closer to the sentiments on the Statue of Liberty, and even at a policy level I am strongly in favor of extending opportunity to all who want to come here and work as contributing members of our society. That’s sort of what made us great, I think.
Such a position, however, does not make the term “illegal immigrant” inaccurate or even inappropriate and those of us who feel plainspeak and plain terms are preferable to political speak get annoyed when we are criticized for trying to get folks to speak plainly. It’s particularly irritating to be accused of fostering the “foundation of racism” when all you’ve done is lobby for accuracy. The desperation to justify politically correct terms only weaponizes words and inflames a conversation.