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Scrubbing the English Language of Meaning: “Chain Migration” Now an Offensive Term</h1></div><div class="gmail-post-meta-b gmail-cf">
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<a href="https://immigrationreform.com/author/imehlman/" title="Posts by Ira Mehlman" rel="author">Ira Mehlman</a> </span>
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<time class="gmail-post-date" datetime="2018-03-21T14:20:41-04:00">March 21, 2018</time>
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</header><div class="gmail-post-content gmail-post-dynamic"><p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-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><p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">Terms
like “illegal alien” (a proper legal definition of foreign nationals
who are in the country without permission), or “amnesty” (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 “chain migration” – 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><p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-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 – or, dare we say, chain migration – 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="gmail-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><p></p><div class="gmail-fluid-width-video-wrapper" style="padding-top:56.25%"></div><p></p><p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">Leading
the assault on the term “chain migration” 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="gmail-s2">blatant appeals to emotion</span></a>.
In response to President Trump’s use of clear language on the topic,
Durbin responded, “When it came to the issue of, quote, ‘chain
migration,’ I said to the president: ‘Do 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.’”</span></p><p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-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="gmail-s2">overwhelmingly oppose chain migration</span></a>)
didn’t 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 “illegal alien” and “amnesty” had to point out the
absurdity of Durbin’s attack on “chain migration.”</span></p><p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">“Durbin’s
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’s painful is having to spell
that out, especially when there’s no evidence that black people have
ever associated chain migration with slavery,” 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="gmail-s2">the paper’s Sunday magazine</span></a>.</span></p><p class="gmail-p1"><span class="gmail-s1">The
Times’ resistance to the dictates of the language police is admirable,
but history teaches us that the language police don’t give up easily. It
took years for the mainstream media to succumb to pressure by the
immigration propagandists to drop “illegal alien” from their lexicon,
but eventually they did. Now that Durbin has declared that “chain
migration” is not only offensive, but <i>racially</i> offensive its days may be numbered. That’s how propagandists prevail over 84 percent of American voters.</span></p></div>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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