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On April 2, 2013, the Associated Press announced amendments to its style book, effectively banning the use of the word illegal to describe a person as in an illegal immigrant. This announcement was followed by similar pronouncements from other news sources, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Denver Post.

Why should a useful and descriptive word be banished? My Websters dictionary defines illegal as not according to or authorized by law and also not sanctioned by official rules. Blacks Law Dictionary, which is commonly used by lawyers and law students, actually defines an illegal alien as An alien who enters a country at the wrong time or place, eludes an examination by officials, obtains entry by fraud, or enters into a sham marriage to evade immigration laws.

I regard these actions to banish illegal as a concerted effort to blur the distinction between legal immigrants and illegal immigrants, as if their immigration status and U.S. immigration law shouldnt matter at all. I see these actions as in direct support of the on-going effort to enact an amnesty for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States, and to prevent the application of current U.S immigration law to them.

Perhaps encouraged by the successful banishment of the word illegal, immigration lawyer Careen Shannon says we should also stop using the word alien to describe foreigners because that term is now associated with extraterrestrial aliens in science fiction literature and movies. Like provincial Americans might actually think foreigners in the U.S. come from other planets?

Alien is another useful and descriptive word that we should not abandon in pursuit of political correctness. Blacks Law Dictionary defines alien as A person who is not a citizen of a given country; a person not owing allegiance to a particular nation.

The current immigration statute of the United States expressly defines alien as meaning any person not a citizen or national of the United States. The statute contains hundreds of references to alien, so banishing the term from our law would be a major undertaking. We cant just substitute non-citizen for alien because there are non-citizen nationals of the United States, like the residents of American Samoa, who are neither citizens nor aliens.

Careen Shannon concludes, Lets just call them people. Hey, if were all just people without distinctions, who needs immigration laws?

Finally, the supporters of amnesty for illegal aliens in the U.S., like U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio OF Florida, insist that we shouldnt call his proposal amnesty, because, Amnesty is the forgiveness of something. His bill is instead comprehensive immigration reform and a pathway to citizenship for the illegal. Right.

The last time the U.S. enacted a big amnesty for illegal aliens in the U.S., in 1986, Senator Rubio was a teenager in high school. At that time, everyone including the sponsors called it what it was, an amnesty. Blacks Law Dictionary actually gives as an example for amnesty: the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act provided amnesty for undocumented aliens already present in the country.

Read more:
How banning 3 useful word undermines immigration reform