Revise for Latino immigrants outline and write a draft based on it

What is your myth?

The myth is that most immigrants in America are illegal immigrants or aliens.

What is your argument about your myth?

The myth is wrong because describing immigrants as illegal is not the correct term to refer to their situation. Additionally, media outlets, Justice Department and the federal Government spread propaganda about the myth.

Evidence

1.) The term illegal is not a correct term

· Although there exists immigrants in America who entered the country through crossing the border illegally, the use of the term illegal immigrants or aliens is not appropriate or correct to their situation. Cecilia Malmstrom, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs for the EU in 2010, explained that the term illegal immigrants does not exist, and that people may come to the EU and might be required to use irregular ways, but no human being is illegal.

· Using the word ‘illegal’ to refer to their situation is inaccurate and harmful (UNHCR). For example the points below this bullet point, but indented, are related ideas under this sentence`s main idea. Inaccurate in that,

· It is legally incorrect, because when people commit criminal offences, committing the criminal offense does not make them ‘illegal people’ (UNHCR).

· It violates the principle of due process, in that, by defining and treating an individual or group as illegal violates their right to recognition as a person and a holder`s rights before the law. It is inaccurate to describe people arriving at borders as illegal, because under international law, everyone has the right to leave a country, including their own (UNHCR).

· Harmful because, it is dehumanizing, calling immigrants ‘illegal’ denies their innate dignity and human rights, and characterizing immigrants existence as illegitimate ignores their experiences as workers, women, men, children, families and the elderly (UNHCR).

· It is criminalizing, the word ‘illegal’ depicts immigrants as dishonest, undeserving and criminals who are a threat to the public good, this normalizes the use of punitive measures, enforcement and procedures to punish and deter irregular immigrants. Furthermore, it promotes the policing of immigrants, the systematic use of detention, and the normalization of handcuffs and other restraints in immigration processes (UNHCR).

· It prevents fair debate, the criminalizing of irregular immigrants rather than addressing the laws and policies which create irregularity, prevents a truthful, respectful and informed debate on immigration (UNHCR).

· It threatens solidarity and costs lives, labelling the entry and stay of immigrants as ‘illegal’ often results in the automatic criminalization of anyone who might help them. It undermines social cohesion, the use of ‘illegal’ encourages suspicion and mistrust of those who simply look ‘foreign’ or different, often on the basis of their race, ethnic origin or religion (UNHCR).

· And lastly, it increases social divisions, and gives rise to racial profiling, xenophobia and hate crimes (UNHCR).

· The term “illegal” is also oppressive, whereby it has been used to define disadvantaged groups at different times throughout history, like the Jewish migrants fleeing the Holocaust, people and acts in violation of the segregation laws of South Africa (1948-1994), and the United States (1876-1965) (UNHCR).

2.) The propaganda fueled by the media outlets

· Although not all media outlets fuel this propaganda, with several International media outlets having changed their terminology and dropped ‘illegal immigrant,’ including leading news agency Associated Press (Associated Press, 2013), some non-conservative media outlets in America continuously portray most immigrants living in America as, ‘illegal immigrants or aliens’.

· The list of labels given to them includes undocumented immigrants, illegal aliens, migrants, and non-citizens. The media uses these terms to describe a person who has entered, lived in or worked in U.S. without proper authorization (Hiltner, 2017).

· The media while portraying immigrants without documentation, tends to demonize them as having committed grueling criminal offences.

· The use of the words illegal immigrants and illegal aliens by the media and justice system has shaped public opinion on immigration policies.

· Although not all information about undocumented immigrants by the justice system is propaganda, the Justice system is known to address undocumented Immigrants, as “illegal aliens”, with CNN reporting in 2018 that an internal email in the Justice Department, has reminded its lawyers that the legally correct term they should be using in their briefs is ‘illegal alien’ and not ‘undocumented immigrant’ (Campoy, 2018).

· This term is not a legal term defined anywhere in the Immigration and Nationality Act, and painting immigrants as “illegal aliens” brings about another misconception for some, that an immigrant`s very presence in the U.S. is a criminal violation of the law (Haque, n.d.)).

· Nonetheless, the Director of Justice (DOJ) weighed in on an issue that was controversial in how immigrants that did not possess correct documentation were to be referred (Campoy, 2018).

· In addition, immigrant advocates view the calling of anyone as “illegal” dehumanizes them, and fails to take into the extraordinary circumstances of refugees (Campoy, 2018).

· The federal government also is spreading propaganda, with Trump`s rule about how government talks about immigrants, in 2018, leading the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes green cards, removing the phrase “a nation of immigrants” from its mission statement. The agency also renamed the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program, which funds English and civics classes for citizens, to the Citizenship and Assimilation Grant Program (Campoy, 2018).

· The federal government also addresses their failure to address immigration through illegal border crossing as a failure in their part, with former President Ronald Reagan once stating that a nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation (Spakovsky, 2018).

· In overall, the Justice Department, federal government and media outlets, address the term ‘undocumented immigrants’ as an euphemism, whereby they see it as a politically correct, made-up term adopted by pro-illegal alien advocacy groups and liberal media outlets to obscure the fact that such aliens have violated U.S. immigration law and are in the country illegally (Campoy, 2018).

References