From the desk of Kate Sinkins: The Weight of Our Words
“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror
of their reality.” -Edgar Allan Poe
As a lawyer, I have always loved words that create a mood, describe something perfectly or clarify an idea. There are words we read daily in the newspaper, and somehow their meaning has shifted from when we first learned the word during childhood. I remember at age 5 or 6, my mom told me not to use the word, “crap”, because it was a lazy way of saying, “I don’t agree with that idea” or “I think what you are saying is wrong”. She said words have the power to inspire, to uplift, to hurt and to destroy. Rather than use a generic word like “crap”, she encouraged me to ask myself what I was trying to convey with that word. As I write legal briefs, letters to the Immigration Court or the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Services on behalf of clients, I carefully select my words, conscious of their ability to uplift or desecrate.
Sometimes, it is easy to pinpoint why a word’s meaning has changed. Power can skew the meaning of any word, such as the word “illegal”. The expression “illegal immigrant” is used by most media sources, from newspapers to radio and tv. It can become part of the daily lexicon which a person can absorb, accept and utilize unless they stop and ask themselves why? Why do people use a phrase that demeans someone, that assigns a person less value, which judges their existence as wrong?
Laws are created to engineer social behavior and to spell out what line one must cross to do something “illegal”. Many religions purport to teach a set of values, philosophies and beliefs. It can be easy for someone to say it is illegal to lie, yet we see a plethora of actors, politicians and influential people accuse others of lying while they are lying themselves. It is easy for someone to say it is illegal to drive higher than the speed limit on the highway, and yet thousands of people receive speeding tickets each year in the US.
I am not sure why it is acceptable to call someone “illegal”, without knowing anything about their immigration history, or the law. Most Americans agree that the person committing an illegal act should be punished. Punishment looks different for different people. When a person who owns a home, two cars, holds a steady job and has no restrictions on their freedom is sent to jail for committing an “illegal” act, being locked up is punishment. That person loses the freedom to come and go as they choose, to eat food they have chosen to eat and to move around with ease. However, an unhoused person living on the streets who is convicted of an “illegal” act and sentenced to a year’s incarceration may not see that as punishment. They may see it as a chance to “reset”, to be given three meals a day, and a bed and bathroom to use. For someone who sleeps in a tent in the woods year round, running water, heat and access to a toilet may not be punishment. Many Americans might find working in a slaughterhouse or washing dirty dishes for 10 hours or changing the sheets of a hotel bed as punishment, while a person from a war-torn country might be grateful to be paid to work, no matter how physically exhausting the job may be.
Entering the U.S. without inspection refers to a person crossing the border into the U.S. without inspection or being formally admitted by an immigration officer. INA 212 (a)(6)(A). This person is considered “inadmissible” and cannot adjust their status to being a lawful permanent resident from within the U.S. without specific exceptions. This violation of “entering without inspection” is a civil infraction, not a criminal offense. The person is charged with an immigration violation. His/her case is decided by an immigration judge in a special Article III court created by the Department of Justice. The act of entering the U.S. without inspection does not make a person an “illegal immigrant”; it means that person is undocumented. Asking the U.S. government for permission to enter the U.S. is the gold standard. However, U.S. law allows someone fleeing persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group, to ask for asylum at the border. Asking for asylum is permitted, it is not an illegal act. In that case, the person is undocumented, but they are seeking a legal manner of entry via asylum. With the rise in divisive rhetoric in politics, immigrants shifted from being “undocumented” to being “illegal”. Words are given power every time we use them, so next time you read the phrase, “illegal immigrant”, ask yourself who benefits from defining others as “illegal”.
