Shahid Haque-Hausrath Quotes
When one refers to an immigrant as an "illegal alien," one is using the term as a noun. The user of the term is effectively saying that the individual, as opposed to any actions that the individual has taken, is illegal. The term “illegal alien” implies that a person’s existence is criminal. I’m not aware of any other circumstance in our common vernacular where a crime is considered to render the individual – as opposed to the individual’s actions – as being illegal. We don’t even refer to our most dangerous and vile criminals as being “illegal” people.
Shahid Haque-Hausrath, Immigration Attorney, Editorial, http://nohumanbeingisillegal.com/Home.html, [See {86589}.]
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The words “illegal alien” are crude and needlessly harsh. There are people who are in American illegally, but the people are not illegal. There is no such term in United States law as “illegal alien”. See {640788}.
The quote is often misreported as “I am, you know, adamantly against illegal illegal immigration."
Ironically, where national quotas have been used in American immigration policy, it has rarely been used to keep nationals of countries with which we were having difficulty, out. In almost all cases, the national quotas have been used to discriminate against racial and religious minorities in America. Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, Catholics, Mormons and Jews have been the most frequent groups targeted. Even when we were in the midst of the Cold War, American policy was to accept immigrants from the Soviet Union and Cuba enthusiastically.
The racial targets of the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League widened and they changed their name to the Asiatic Immigration Exclusion League.
At the time, many people referred to immigrants who had entered the United States without the proper documentation or by contravening our laws were referred to as “illegals” or “illegal immigrants”. Bank robbers and rapists were never referred to as “illegals”—only immigrants. Carroll and others pointed out that there was no such thing as an “illegal person”—only illegal acts.
Statement made during televised debate with Walter Mondale, October 21, 1984 (see citation).
