If there is one specific stance that fueled Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 Presidential election, it was his immigration policy. The “Build a Wall” mantra dominated debates, rallies, and news stations for months. However, two years later, disagreements over illegal immigration remain as relevant, and as fruitless, as ever. Our country is at a verbal war over this issue, not because of President Trump, but because of mislabeling from the leftist media. Two key terms have completely lost their original meaning due to the way the biased media utilizes them for political purposes. First, mass media outlets typically use the word “undocumented” when discussing illegal immigrants. While it may seem like a minor shift in labeling, it does not take a linguistic expert to show that the language surrounding a policy debate has an immense impact on the debate itself. Second, the word “justice” has been utterly stripped of its purpose and is used to promote the polar opposite of what true justice actually requires.
When the media uses the word “undocumented” to describe illegal immigrants, it paints the picture that those in the country illegally have not actually committed a crime. In reality, they have violated one of the most basic tenets of every government – sovereignty over domestic borders. If media outlets convince the public that illegal immigrants are free of wrongdoing, they can ostracize those who call for rule of law, calling them bigots or out of touch elitists, when in fact they simply do not tolerate lawbreakers. This character attack, when not addressed by Conservatives, wreaks havoc on our credibility on this issue. Additionally, this term allows for one of the most damaging leftist arguments in the entire debate. Many in the Senate, including former President Barack Obama, advocated for amnesty for “undocumented immigrants without a criminal history.” The problem? There are zero people in the entire country who fit that description, because it is logically impossible to be a criminal without a criminal history. Conservatives must stop the Left from framing the debate in their favor by using misconstrued words that do not accurately describe the situation.
The second way this issue has been twisted is through the word justice. The primary argument Democrats give for allowing unfettered immigration into the United States is that every person on earth has a right to move anywhere they choose, and denying that right would be unjust. Unfortunately, there is one group of people nearly always excluded when the topic of illegal immigration surfaces: potential legal immigrants. Right now, there are roughly 4 million people, waiting an average of six years each, to enter the US legally. With every illegal immigrant that breaks the law and enters this country, it becomes that much harder for government officials to allow another legal immigrant access. This country was not built on immigration; it was built on legal immigration, which becomes absurdly difficult to justify with 30 million illegals in the country. The reason the status quo is the exact opposite of justice is because the law abiding are being harmed in favor of the lawbreakers! This is the disgusting state of the current immigration standards, and it is the result of rampant mislabeling in Congress and at large.
We cannot allow those who intentionally hijack this debate with faulty definitions to continue. The way to solve the problem is not with a law, but with simple, persistent conversation. It involves rejecting the nonsense the mass media is feeding the American people, pushing back in conversation with someone who states that illegal immigrants are simply “undocumented’, and keeping the correct interpretation of justice evident in your political beliefs. The first step to solving America’s immigration crisis is starting with the correct frame of mind. The only way to do that is to keep the language surrounding the debate honest. Without that, proactive conversation is impossible.
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