University Herald<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe reasons given for the prohibition allege that saying the word \u2018illegal\u2019 is \u2018racially charged\u2019 and \u2018dehumanizing\u2019 to the people it describes. Better, the students argue, to use labels like \u2018undocumented immigrants,\u2019 \u2018immigrants without papers,\u2019 and \u2018immigrants seeking status.\u2019<\/p>\n
This line of argument is consistent with the old trope that \u201cno person is illegal.\u201d Which, of course, misses the point and confuses the issue. The term illegal immigrant does not refer to a person\u2019s humanity, but rather to his or her legal status.<\/p>\n
Because Congress has the power under Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution \u201cTo establish a uniform rule of naturalization,\u201d it has the power to determine what qualifies as legal immigration. Foreign nationals who violate Congress\u2019 uniform rules are, by definition and common sense, illegal immigrants. The reason illegal immigrants are \u201cundocumented\u201d and \u201cwithout papers\u201d is because they are \u201cseeking [legal] status\u201d without wanting to undergo the legal process.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
In other words: All of the benefits, none of the responsibilities.<\/p>\n
Sounds like sophomoric reasoning to me…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Liberalism\u2019s word police are at it again. Student government representatives at UCLA and UC Berkeley voted recently to ban use of the term \u201cillegal immigrant\u201d in on-campus \u201cacademic writing, or in communications between faculty, students and staff,\u201d reports the University Herald. The reasons given for the prohibition allege that saying the word \u2018illegal\u2019 is \u2018racially […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[299,1694,144,1553,2366,2454],"class_list":["post-19406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-california","tag-citizenship","tag-constitution","tag-illegal","tag-immigrant","tag-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19406"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19414,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19406\/revisions\/19414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}