California Bans Word ‘Alien’

Illegal alien, illegal immigrant, undocumented immigrant, unauthorized immigrant, undocumented worker — what comes next? Mexican-born expatriate? Transitional American? Co-dependent citizen?

The left is running out of euphemisms for the estimated 11 million people who have taken up residence in violation of U.S. law. Perhaps progressive leaders hope to exhaust all possible English language combinations to describe this population until there is no other linguistic choice than to call them American citizens.

A bill signed into California law on Monday by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown bans the word “alien” from mention in state law.

A law on the books in the state gives protections to American workers by stipulating, “Aliens should be hired on public-works contracts only after citizens of the United States.”

This is “just a way for legislators to get their names in the paper. … (The) negative connotations come from the fact that people are breaking the law,” charged Assemblyman Matthew Harper.

“Alien is now commonly considered a derogatory term for a foreign-born person and has very negative connotations,” bill sponsor state Sen. Tony Mendoza, D-Artesia, told the Los Angeles Times. “The United States is a country of immigrants who not only form an integral part of our culture and society, but are also critical contributors to our economic success.”

Use of the term “alien” to describe those in the nation illegally remains in federal code and in other states’ laws.

Federal law, 8 U.S. Code § 1325, defines “improper entry by alien,” as “any alien who (1) enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, or (2) eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or (3) attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact.”

Republicans largely refused to get in the way of the political correctness steamroller.

This is “just a way for legislators to get their names in the paper. … (The) negative connotations come from the fact that people are breaking the law,” said Assemblyman Matthew Harper, the sole Republican to vote against the California measure.

“Changing the word won’t change the fact that folks are here illegally,” said the Huntington Beach lawmaker.

Mass illegal immigration has contributed to a high unemployment rate in California. The state suffers from the seventh highest unemployment rate in the nation, 6.3 percent compared with a national average of 5.3 percent, according to a July report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Despite the continual injury done to American workers by encouraging further illegal immigration, Brown and Californian legislators appear determined to further blur the line between American citizens and those here without any legal status — illegal aliens.

Soon, the only acceptable use of the word “alien” will be to denote a traveler from a planet other than earth. But if an encounter with extraterrestrial life does happen to occur, the left will probably determine “alien” to be too offensive even for those interstellar travelers and cook up some new PC jargon — and perhaps even voting rights — for our intergalactic brethren.

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