Pop quiz!
Question: Who said the following?
“We all agree on the need to better secure the border and to punish employers who choose to hire illegal immigrants. We are a generous and welcoming people here in the United States. But those who enter the country illegally and those who employ them disrespect the rule of law, and they are showing disregard for those who are following the law.”
“We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.”
Was this said by:
- Former President Donald J. Trump?
- U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas)?
- U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.)?
Answer: Trick question!
RELATED: Biden Takes It Back: ‘I Shouldn’t Have Used Illegal’
None of the above conservative Republicans uttered these words. The man who stated them was none other than (brace yourself) Barack Obama. These were his comments at a Dec. 15, 2005, news conference, back when he was a U.S. senator in a hurry.
That’s right: “Illegal” was common parlance among top Democrats until just a few years ago. Democrats now consider this hate speech.
President Joe Biden learned this lesson last week, after he said in his State of the Union address that Georgia nursing student Laken Riley “was killed by an illegal.”
Democrats freaked out.
“Biden’s remark about immigrants was ugly and uncalled for,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) complained. “He’s piling on to Trump’s dangerous rhetoric.”
(Democrats stayed largely mum about the 22-year-old Riley’s murder, allegedly at the hands of Venezuelan illegal alien Jose Antonio Ibarra, 26, who broke into America in September 2022, on Biden’s watch.)
These and other leftist brickbats hurled at Biden contrast starkly with Democrat luminaries’ frequent use of “illegal” not so long ago:
As much as today’s Democrats recoil at “illegal” and “illegal alien,” they cannot explain why this language is inappropriate, other than with such slogans as: “No human is illegal.” That bumper sticker might make people weep. Regardless, those who enter America illegally are illegal. And, as foreign citizens, they also are aliens.
Today’s Democrats prefer “undocumented.” But this is squid ink into which Democrats escape to conceal their evil ways.
“‘Undocumented immigrant’ is a politically correct, made-up term adopted by pro-illegal alien advocacy groups and liberal media outlets to obscure the fact that such aliens have violated U.S. immigration law and are in the country illegally,” Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Hans A. von Spakovsky wrote in the Daily Signal.
“Illegal alien” appears throughout the U.S. Code and in numerous federal court decisions, including U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Von Spakovsky explains, “‘Alien’—rather than ‘immigrant’—is the correct legal term, since ‘alien’ is defined in 8 U.S.C. §1101 (a)(3) as ‘any person not a citizen or national of the United States.’”
Democrats’ constant word games camouflage their nefarious deeds, in this case, to rip America’s borders wide open and let 8.8 million illegals, and rising, invade America. They will crowd Democrat states. And if the 2030 Census counts them (which it should not), those states will score more federal funds and perhaps bonus seats in the House and Electoral College.
Attorney General Merrick Garland last week threatened legal jihad against states that demand photo ID to vote. He also promised to hammer states that weaken “temporary” and “emergency” COVID-era measures such as same-day registration, mass-mail-in ballots, no-excuse absentee ballots, drop-off boxes, and ballot trafficking. Garland wants early voting to start just after Labor Day and mail-in ballots to wander in until nearly Thanksgiving.
Amid such chaos, Democrats hope that illegal aliens — or “newcomers,” as the White House recently dubbed them — will choose to vote or get bamboozled into doing so.
The Biden/Democrat border fiasco is no accident. It is deliberate, and maximizing Democrat power and control is the goal.
Amid this worrisome backdrop, the least that conservatives can do is reject the Left’s gaslighting. These are not “undocumented workers,” “migrants,” or “our newest Americans,” as today’s post-Clinton and post-Obama Democrats call them.
Von Spakovsky puts it perfectly: “Under federal law, any individual in this country who is not a citizen is an alien. And any alien who is here without permission is here illegally. End of story.”
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor.