On immigrants, undocumented and otherwise

Immigration, it seems fair to say, has been at the top of our national political agenda for the last several years.  And with the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the republican nomination, it seems to be on everyone’s mind.  There’s no need to re-cap his position, whichever iteration of it he’s on.  I’ve written before about bits of it, especially concerning Muslims, as his proposals have intersected with my own interests.

Since it’s so much talked about, everyone, it seems, has an opinion, especially on what to do about undocumented immigrants.  These are, as everyone knows, people who have entered the country illegally or who have entered the country legally but overstayed their visas.  When I was a child we called them “illegal aliens,” which I think we can agree is less friendly and not just because it spawned a dopey Genesis song.

In some quarters, undocumented immigrants are called “illegal immigrants” or even the worst of all, simply “illegals.”  That term offends because it completely de-personalizes and dehumanizes, which I suppose is the point.  I guess if we don’t have to think of them has humans then we don’t have to treat them as humans.  Almost equally offensive is the term “anchor baby,” applied to children of “illegals” born in the United States and thus automatically citizens.  For now. 

None of this is new.  What is new is a suggestion that I recently saw which has made me re-think the whole issue of “undocumented immigrants” altogether.  In a discussion thread, one of the participants made the following argument:

1. Immigration is a legal process
2. So-called “undocumented immigrants” are here illegally and not in that process.\
3. Therefore, so-called “undocumented immigrants” aren’t immigrants at all.

QED, amirite?

At first sniff, this argument stunk, never mind that no alternative nomenclature was on offer. Always wanting to learn new things, I consulted some dictionaries on immigrant and immigration, looking at primary definitions. 

• Immigration: the act of coming to live permanently in a foreign country.
• Immigrant: a person who comes to live permanently in another country

Then, since the definition of immigration refers to immigrating.

• Immigrate: come to live permanently in a foreign country

Yes, the word immigration does contain a reference to authorization, but the semicolon suggests a separation.  Yet neither immigrant nor immigrate makes any such distinction.  The definition for immigrant, for instance, does not read “a person who legally settles as a permanent resident in a foreign country.”  No, after second and third sniffs this argument continued to stink.

Besides the lexical problems, others arose, these more personal.  My mother’s side of the family came to America in the early- to mid-seventeenth century; my father’s in the 1790s.  Ignoring my maternal ancestors who, whatever they were doing, were moving from England to, well, England, we need to consider the paternal line, moving from England to the United States of America.  In the 1790s there were no immigration controls.  Therefore, there was no legal process.  By the argument above, then, no immigration means those Bazemores were not immigrants.  Then what the hell were they?  Settlers?  No, the place they came to, northeastern North Carolina, was already settled.  Clearly there was immigration; there were tons of people migrating in (see what I did there?) to the United States.

They were, not to put too fine a point on it, immigrants.  Etymology is our friend in this.  All of the words under discussion emerged from the Latin verb immigrare, literally “to move into.”  The denotation of the words is pretty clear.  Of course, anyone who studies language knows that usages change faster than dictionary definition, but usage is our friend, too.  By its existence, the term “undocumented immigrant” tells us that, yes, anyone who comes to the country and intends to stay is an immigrant.  The only reason there is any delineation is because we now attempt to control immigration through law.

In fact, what separates an immigrant from any other visitor to the country is that the immigrant is not a visitor at all.  He or she has come to live permanently in this country.  At that point the immigrant, undocumented or not, ceases to be an immigrant—the process of immigration is over.  That person is a resident.

Which is the whole point of the last 700 or so words.  The human beings referred to in this argument are residents of the United States of America.  And if we’re going to be honest in our writing and speaking perhaps we should recognize that fact (though to do so is certainly politically inconvenient).  Why don’t we try “undocumented residents?”  Maybe that will put a different gloss on the matter.