Many of these writers owned slaves, I do not think they meant it as a global interpretation, but that can be an argument for later.
We can file that one away for a rainy day.
NOTE: This is kind of creepy, but it actually started raining here as I was typing this response...
I certainly do not advocate killing any illegal immigrants or anything such as that, but I would be in favor of deporting them once they are caught.
I agree, since I don't see any better way of dealing with them once they're here. The real issue shouldn't be so much beefing up our security as figuring out how to eliminate their desire (need?) to come here.
I do not think that the way we classify them in popular discourse will have any impact on anything. They come here to work, not to avoid being called an immigrant.
Classification is always an issue; otherwise, racial slurs wouldn't be treated any differently from simple statemtents of ethnicity. If classification wasn't an issue "racial slurs" probably never would have been developed in the first place. Now, I'm not saying that calling them "illegal immigrants" is a racial slur (or even a "slur" for that matter), but it is demeaning.
No one is questioning your love of the country.
It happens with alarming frequency, although, admittedly, less of late.
But legal definitions matter, the language that gets used matters. It is the same, in my view, to the whole debate over "fetus" or "baby."
Legal terms and language used in these documents matters. While on the surface the terminology makes no difference, in a legal case this kind of thing is then cited in arguments and lays out foundations for cases.
That said, I am not advocating that we deny an immigrant the right to life, or anything such as that, I am simply saying we deny them what we deny thousands of others, the ability to be in this country without legal documentation.
We are in one hundred percent agreement so far.
If someone broke the law to come here, they illegally came here. I do not see the problem with calling it what it is. Illegal.
The article deals with calling it what it is. For them, coming here was illegal. Being here is illegal. Existing is not illegal. The term "illegal immigrant" at least has the ambiguity that it could describe the first two and not the third, but things like "illegal entity," "illegal alien," or just plain "illegal" imply the third much more heavily than the first two.
From the article:
It said acceptable terms are "undocumented immigrants," "foreign nationals," "persons without legal immigration status," "unauthorized workers" and "alleged or suspected undocumented immigrants."
None of these, by themselves, validate the actions of people who came here illegally. None of these terms, by the by, invalidate any other part of those peoples' lives, either, nor can they (easily) be misconstrued, as the term "illegal alien" has been, to do so. The terms listed in the article (with the exception of the mention of "human rights advocates," that one came out of left field) are just more concise.
Some food for thought: What if we were to attach the term "illegal" to other people who commit crimes? If we refer to murderers as "illegal killers," there is an obvious follow-up question: who are the "legal killers?" Executioners? Police officers, who must sometimes kill in the line of duty? Our soldiers? The association is uncomfortable, to say the least.
