The article says "people", not humans. And whichever term it is using, it is not referring to undocumented immigrants, it is referring to people, regardless of documentation. "Trump's 'border czar', Tom Homan, has stated ICE does not need probable cause to detain people based on their physical appearance. Homan confirmed ICE has made what he described as 'collateral arrests' of 'many' American citizens". The goal is to arrest at least 3,000 brown people, many of which will end up being US citizens, but that is just collateral damage to them.
Oh good, more semantics to the rescue. You're as great as those people who ended homelessness with 'unhoused', ended racism by lumping all non-whites into 'people of color'.
I'd say 'God bless you sir', but that's hate speech as well now.
> I'd say 'God bless you sir', but that's hate speech as well now.
The only people I see suggesting that it's hate speech are conservatives who pretend you can't say anything anymore. I'd love to see something beyond some random Twitter post from some random user that classifies "god bless you" is literal hate speech.
It’s easier to prop up a strawman then have a real discussion
This “can’t say god bless you” nonsense is just moving the “war on Christmas” culture war BS even further.
It is not a serious discussion. The end goal is to install the 10 commandments in public and force prayer in schools. Because anything else is persecution
Words matter because they define our shared reality.
The examples you shared are liberal identity politics, nonsense I don't prescribe to. Calling a person "illegal" is a way of dehumanization. Dehumanization is the first step towards genocide.
The second and fourth part of your reply do not match the first and third one.
> The examples you shared are liberal identity politics, nonsense I don't prescribe to. ... Dehumanization is the first step towards genocide.
Good, wholeheartedly agree, identity politics is a form of divide and conquer thought up by people who had two goals: to gain power and to keep it. Also, indeed, dehumanisation has been used by many with ill intent to make it psychologically defensible to get rid of groups of people who either stand in their way or who are used as scape goats for everything bad whether those be 'Jews' or 'straight white men'.
> Words matter because they define our shared reality. ... Calling a person "illegal" is a way of dehumanization.
Nope, that is part of the word games played by the same group which tries to use identity politics to gain and keep power. Calling a person illegal is the way to refer to people who committed the crime of illegal entry, thereby violating immigration law. All countries have laws on migration and as far as I know all those laws - when translated to English - refer to Illegal entry when discussing those who violate it. It is comparable to calling those who commit the crime of robbery a robber, those who commit the crime of burglary a burglar, those who commit the crime of fraud a fraudster and so on.
You (and everyone who takes that stance) are reading a lot into how the term should be parsed. "Immigrated illegally" is a completely accurate statement. It is not saying that the people are illegal (how could they be?), but that their immigration was illegal.
Now, you can say that the immigration laws are morally wrong if you want, but that's a different argument. As far as descriptive terms go, they immigrated illegally, so they're illegal immigrants - immigrants whose immigration was illegal. No, we're not going to go with whatever newspeak alternative you come up with.
But your side also has a valid point: These are human beings. They deserve to be treated like humans, not animals, even if they are being expelled from the country. That's a true point, and one that needs to be made repeatedly. But heckling people about the term used to describe the people is not going to move the needle on that issue.
> heckling people about the term used to describe the people is not going to move the needle on that issue
I disagree with this; this is the primary means by which dehumanization occurs. I like to think of "police officer" as the perfect dehumanizing term because it showcases that dehumanization is not always negative. Some people will hear the term and automatically think good things and some will automatically think bad things. Few will think about a person they don't know, complete with vices and virtues they may or may not agree with. The point is that dehumanization makes you think of a concept of a person rather than a person.
But that's true of every term. "Computer programmer", say. People hear that term and automatically think certain things. " Few will think about a person they don't know, complete with vices and virtues they may or may not agree with." It "makes you think of a concept of a person rather than a person."
So I think that dynamic is present in every term we use to refer to humans as something other than "human". I don't need people to refer to me as "human who programs computers" so that I'm not dehumanized. (In fact, once "human that programs computers" becomes the accepted term, that term would also have the dynamic of dehumanizing those it covers. Having the word "human" in it wouldn't save it once it became a recognized term.)
Your whole first paragraph is actually offering another example of a dehumanizing term. The point of “human who does a thing” is to be a naturally-chosen phrase, not a term. Think, “Joe programs computers”, not, “Joe is a computer programmer”. You are correct that it would similarly be dehumanizing if it simply became another term to replace “computer programmer” like “Joe is a human-who-programs-computers” but that is because the statement is about what Joe supposedly “is” rather than being a description of things they’ve done.
Well, I mean, I don’t disagree; those are all racist terms. The dehumanizing aspect of those terms (and more generally with racism) is that they are reducing a person to their physical characteristics. “They’re black” is different from “they have a dark skin color”. One is talking about “what someone is” holistically (dehumanizing), while the other is talking about a specific aspect of their physical appearance.
That seems a bit of a stretch. The idea will evolve into, “Since racial labels are bad let’s just ignore them altogether and be color blind”. But we all know that’s not how the real world works. Three male programmers with same qualifications, the black man is going to have a different experience with the police than a white man. And the Asian man is going to deal with different stuff when it comes to dating.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this comment but I also think the things you mention are examples of how society-wide dehumanization can affect real-world decision-making when it comes to certain demographics.
> You (and everyone who takes that stance) are reading a lot into how the term should be parsed. "Immigrated illegally" is a completely accurate statement. It is not saying that the people are illegal (how could they be?), but that their immigration was illegal.
That is not what is said - otherwise it would be people who immigrated illegally, using an adverb instead of an adjective.
By moving the designator illegal from the activity to the person, you are criminalizing their being instead of their deed.
Well, if someone doesn't have a license and drives, we call them an "unlicensed driver". It's their driving that's unlicensed, not them as a human being.
I think the other child comment here shoots himself in the foot by resorting to the very weak argument “guess we can’t say anything anymore”.
A stronger argument would be like: what about the terms criminal, convict, or even lawyer, doctor? Is it not just as referential to a person’s being to call them by their status or trade or any number of properties?
I happen to have loved several illegal immigrants who are close to my family. I don’t think badly of them or their being. But illegal immigrant is a factual description of what they are.
Agreed. The right terminology used by even the government is "unauthorized immigrants". These include people who may actually be in the country legally - like those seeking asylum - but can be deported at any time.
That said, though no person's existence should be called "illegal", I'm afraid it's an uphill battle to change that term if Fox News is going to use it 24/7. There are better hills to die on.
> The right terminology used by even the government is "unauthorized immigrants".
I wish they used the term immigrant. The preferred term seems to be "illegal alien" or one or both of those words. See this example from yesterday from the department of homeland security:
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/20/six-months-keeping-ameri...
I think that you're probably going to end up in a pit about the term "hate speech", but the terms "illegal" or "illegal alien", which seems to be the words of the moment, are deliberately dehumanizing, and that's the point.
What a bizarre article! It always refers to illegal immigrants as "humans" as if that's the crime.
Is this a new trend in the euphemism treadmill? Have we moved from "undocumented immigrant" to "human"?