Obfuscating Euphemisms in The Immigration Debate
Who can steelman an argument against using the term ‘illegal immigrant’ in favor of ‘undocumented immigrant’?
For the record, I’m one of those people who believe in 100% open borders and I am an immigrant myself (through a lottery) and I’m fucking baffled by the heat of this dispute. ‘Illegal immigrant’ strikes me as a neutral and factual term. Someone is an immigrant when they cross borders into a new jurisdiction, and if they do so contrary to that jurisdiction’s laws, they’re doing so illegally. Seems straightforward to me. In contrast, the term ‘undocumented’ comes off as an intentionally obfuscating euphemism.
The arguments I’ve heard in favor of ‘undocumented’ seem completely unconvincing so far but I’m open to being convinced otherwise:
Crossing the border illegal or overstaying your VISA are not criminal acts, but civil offenses.
This is largely true, but so what? Something can still be illegal even if there are no criminal penalties.
No human being is illegal.
I have no fucking idea what this is supposed to mean. On the one hand, the response can be “that’s true, isn’t immigration law fucked up?”. The other response can also be the equally asinine “no human being is undocumented either”. I want to believe that there is a kernel of truth in this statement but it just comes across as completely vacuous.
The people most impacted by this issue find the term ‘illegal immigrant’ offensive.
I have seen polling that asked Hispanic Americans how they feel about the term, and to the extent that they are a proxy representative of illegal immigrants, this argument seems to be somewhat true. But again, so what? I don’t believe that groups should have unilateral ability to dictate how people talk about them. I felt the same way when DAPL protestors insisted on the term ‘water protector’ which inherently accepted their endeavor as both noble and effective. If a term is offensive, people should be able to easily point out why this is the case.
So far my theory is that people want to work really hard to avoid acknowledging the fact that a large demographic is intentionally breaking the law. There is a social norm against breaking the law that bleeds into an understanding of morality. Therefore, the term ‘illegal’ is an uncomfortable reminder of ‘law-breaking’ and therefore best avoided.
But, by virtue of being an anarchist, I personally have no understanding that illegal = bad and I suspect that the fight over this euphemism is a tacit acknowledgment of how awful the word ‘illegal’ makes people feel. That’s the most plausible argument for why there is such a strong insistence on using the term ‘undocumented’. Am I wrong?
I've taken to using "unauthorized immigrant", in order to avoid both the pitfalls of affirming an "obfuscating euphemism" and of triggering an autopilot reaction to "illegal immigrant". Nobody has had an immediate "No human being is unauthorized" reaction, derailing rational discussion.
I agreed with your basic stance until this post prompted me to reconsider. I still don't have a strong feeling, but the thing that gives me doubt is that I failed to think of a single other case where we say someone is an "illegal X" for any other crime.
Some crimes have separate words as a descriptor, such as "murderer".
Sometimes the word illegal is applied to a different object ("illegal firearm").
But I can't think of any phrase like "illegal driver", which makes me think that "illegal immigrant" actually is an outlier phrase.
I'm not claiming this is a proof you shouldn't use the phrase, just that it makes it more likely that the objectors have a core of a point, even if they've failed to articulate it well.