After years of debate over the term "illegal immigrant," The Associated Press last week abolished the term from its style guide. It's about time.
The label "illegal immigrant"—often shortened in casual discourse to simply "illegal"—is inaccurate and loaded. AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll got it right when she said that "illegal" should describe only an action, never a person.
This isn't about political correctness. The term "illegal immigrant" is based on a fundamentally flawed assumption — that non-citizens living here without proper authorization have committed a crime. In fact, many haven't. This characterization of people as criminals immediately and unfairly diminishes their character in readers' eyes. It's a disservice not only to immigrants, but to the public.
"Illegal immigrant" is not a legal designation. In fact, overstaying a visa and residing in the United States without proper documentation are civil violations, like failing to wear a bike helmet.
The Supreme Court pointed this out in 2011's Arizona vs. the United States. "As a general rule, it is not a crime for a removable alien to remain present in the United States," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the court. Meanwhile, in her first-ever Supreme Court opinion, Mohawk Industries vs. Carpenter, Justice Sonia Sotomayor used the phrase "undocumented immigrant"—for the first time in the court's history.
Some undocumented immigrants have indeed committed criminal violations; federal law provides that anyone who "eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers" when entering the country can be imprisoned for up to 6 months. Negligently cutting down a neighbor's tree can carry the same criminal penalty in California; no one is calling those violators "criminals" or "illegal landscapers."
Very few of those called "illegal immigrants" have ever been convicted of the "illegal" action we ascribe to them. A "convict" or "criminal" has gained this classification through trial. The idea that one is innocent until proven guilty is a basic tenet of American justice. Yet, we seem quick to abandon our values when considering people we perceive as foreign.
Given these inaccuracies, the term is closer to slang than to legal designation. Its false legitimacy makes it, in some ways, more pernicious than other pejorative expressions. Most racial slurs are not assigned the power of legal discourse.
"Illegal immigrant" is no less a racial slur than so many other words we understand as demeaning. It is too often used to describe all people of Latino origin, and opens the door to racial profiling.
Thus, the term's most critical consequence is the damage it causes to immigrants and even non-immigrants of Latino decent. The legal and moral connotations of a term that improperly brands people lawbreakers serves to stigmatize and foster ill-will toward the people it describes. A 2012 survey by Latino Decisions and the National Hispanic Media Coalition found almost 60 percent of non-Latinos admitted to a "cold" feeling toward people called "illegal aliens," while under half had the same response to those labeled "undocumented."
Worse, the term fuels violence. As an Ecuadorian man named Marcelo Lucero was beaten to death in Patchogue, Suffolk County, in 2008, his attackers yelled that he and his friends were "Mexicans" and "illegals." Hate crimes against Latinos made up 66 percent of violence based on ethnicity in 2010. Speech that legitimizes the inferiority of a particular group injures members of that group—sometimes physically.
There can be no fair debate on immigration policy so long as the loaded term "illegal immigrant" is used. Journalists frame these debates by transmitting information, ideally in a neutral, objective way. Avoiding imprecise and racist language provides a clear, accurate, and unemotional framework for conversations about immigration reform.
The AP's move shows that it takes seriously its obligation to the American public. All news outlets should follow suit.
Kathrina Szymborski is an attorney in New York City.