Freedom Line Blog

Liberalism’s word police are at it again.

Student government representatives at UCLA and UC Berkeley voted recently to ban use of the term “illegal immigrant” in on-campus “academic writing, or in communications between faculty, students and staff,” reports the University Herald.

The reasons given for the prohibition allege that saying the word ‘illegal’ is ‘racially charged’ and ‘dehumanizing’ to the people it describes. Better, the students argue, to use labels like ‘undocumented immigrants,’ ‘immigrants without papers,’ and ‘immigrants seeking status.’

This line of argument is consistent with the old trope that “no person is illegal.” Which, of course, misses the point and confuses the issue. The term illegal immigrant does not refer to a person’s humanity, but rather to his or her legal status.

Because Congress has the power under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution “To establish a uniform rule of naturalization,” it has the power to determine what qualifies as legal immigration. Foreign nationals who violate Congress’ uniform rules are, by definition and common sense, illegal immigrants. The reason illegal immigrants are “undocumented” and “without papers” is because they are “seeking [legal] status” without wanting to undergo the legal process.

No serious person disputes this. What the UC students really mean to convey with their vote is that the very idea of distinguishing between legal and illegal immigration is itself racially charged and dehumanizing. Having rejected the idea that American citizenship requires accepting certain fundamental beliefs, these enlightened collegians would extend the blessings of liberty without requiring a reciprocal commitment to respect the laws and mores of the community that make these blessings possible.

In other words: All of the benefits, none of the responsibilities.

Sounds like sophomoric reasoning to me…

Amid the national debate over whether to amend the 14th Amendment to prohibit automatic birthright citizenship for “anchor babies” of illegal immigrants, we receive startling data from a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.  In 2008, according to the numbers, illegal immigrant parents accounted for some 8% of births in America – one out of every twelve.

Although illegal immigrants constitute 4% of the American adult population, the Census data indicates that they account for twice that percentage of newborns.  The terms of the 14th Amendment grant citizenship to”all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” and courts have interpreted that to grant birthright citizenship.  Amendment proponents, however, argue that those terms fairly aimed to protect freed slaves from attempts to deny them equal rights under the law, not to confer automatic U.S. citizenship to illegal immigrants’ offspring.

Regardless of the legal and constitutional merits for or against the amendment, the new data adds startling new practical, real-world, objective perspective to the debate.