Look ... political correctness is simply a way to hide behind words and not something that I have ever subscribed to. If people get offended that's their problem. With that said I will say that the term needs to be used correctly, but if it is accurate then it is the term that should be used.
If they came into this country illegally ... then they illegally immigrated and are, by definition illegal immigrants and should be called such. They are not 'undocumented workers' they do not have 'no legal status' and are not 'non-status alians'.
But calling them 'illegal immigrants' makes it sound like they broke the law ....
Guess what ... THEY DID. There is a legal process to immigrate into this country if it is not followed then they broke the law. Not all of them do it intentionally, and the system is messed up, convoluted, and out dated I will grant you, but if I fail to pay my taxes ... even unintentionally ... I still broke the law and can be punished to the full extent of that law. I can reasonably be called a tax cheat, or tax evader.
Are we going to start calling bank robbers 'unauthorized withdrawers' to make the act seem less 'criminal'? Come on people, wake up.
I do, however, have sympathy for those that were brought into this country by their parents illegally when they were little. They did not, through any action of their own, break the law. Many were infants, or toddlers and should not (by any reasonable human being) be punished for their parents choices. Most of these grow up knowing nothing of their 'home country' and forcefully deporting them to such is not fair to them in any stretch of the imagination. These are the people that should be helped through the process and allowed a means to become citizens with all rights and responsibilities that such citizenship includes.
I know that many of those that come here illegally do so to try and get a better life for themselves and their families and either feel that the proper paths are too restrictive or cumbersome, or simply don't know how. But while 'intent' should mitigate things, it does not change the fact that they have, in fact, broken the law and continue to do so every day that they remain in this county.
But they aren't hurting anyone, we shouldn't criminalize them ....
Tell that to the people who are unable to get work because an employer has hired someone who is here illegally. Tell that to the tax payers that are often paying for benefits claimed (illegally in some cases) by these illegal immigrants. Illegal immigrants do, in fact, cause harm in many ways, but it is often 'unintentional' or 'indirect' so certain groups feel it should just be over looked and ignored. And that's not even talking about the ones that do come over here and commit other crimes, sometimes violent crimes.
Also, in some cases the efforts that they go through to gain employment can cause a lot of grief to innocent people if their SSN or other identifying information is used. Even if that wasn't the intent of the illegal immigrant that did it (or in many cases they may know nothing about it because they got the information from another party who is really to blame for the theft of the identity) it is still a felony offense and can cause a completely innocent person a huge headache getting everything straightened out.
The bottom line is ... if they immigrated illegally (they aren't trying to get rid of the term illegal immigration, so they recognize that it IS illegal) then they are, by definition, illegal immigrants - people that immigrated into a country illegally.
Also ... for the record ... not all illegal immigrants are Hispanic. Some are British, Canadian, German, Dutch, Australian, or any other country of the world. Regardless of their origin, if they illegally immigrated into this country they are 'illegal immigrants'.
I would, however, like to ask the AP ... if there aren't illegal immigrants then who is it that commits illegal immigration?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment