“Illegal Immigrant” Is Now Out, But AP Doesn’t Tell Us What’s In

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The Associated Press has announced that it will no longer use the phrase “illegal immigrant” in its stories. Here’s the new entry in the AP Stylebook:

Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant. Acceptable variations include living in or entering a country illegally or without legal permission.

Except in direct quotations, do not use the terms illegal alien, an illegal, illegals or undocumented.

AP’s announcement explains that they’ve been “ridding the Stylebook of labels,” and that “this discussion about labeling people, instead of behavior, led us back to ‘illegal immigrant’ again. We concluded that to be consistent, we needed to change our guidance.”

I’ve used “illegal immigrant” before, and I’ve always had a hard time buying the argument that it’s an inherently insulting term. But times change, and I generally adhere to AP style since that’s what I learned many decades ago. Cranky stubbornness aside, I certainly don’t have any reason to make an exception here, so I won’t. Illegal immigrant is now out.

But I do still have a problem. AP apparently now feels that there’s no acceptable way to refer to people who are in the country illegally. Neither “undocumented immigrant” nor “unauthorized immigrant,” is acceptable, and neither is anything else. Labels are flatly not allowed, despite the fact that we label people all the time. Kevin Drum is a blogger. Barack Obama is a politician. Etc.

This leaves us with constructions like “John Doe is a person who immigrated to the United States illegally.” Or: “A bill pending in Congress would bar immigrants who are in the country illegally from receiving Medicaid.” Clunkiness aside, I guess we can all get used to that, but I’m not sure how it especially serves the cause of accuracy.

Jose Antonio Vargas, who has been at the forefront of this battle, apparently thinks that “undocumented immigrant” is fine. Other campaigners against “illegal immigrant” seem to agree. I’ve never been too keen on that formulation, but I can live with it. Unless I get further guidance from the MoJo copy desk, that will probably be my usual descriptive phrase in the future.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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