MICHAEL BARONE: Eschewing euphemisms frames the immigration issue Trump’s way.
Euphemism has been the weapon of the liberals on this. You can’t say illegal immigrants, you have to say undocumented aliens. (By the way, have you ever heard those two words spoken together in ordinary conversation?) You can’t say amnesty, you have to say legalization. You can’t say illegal immigrants brought in illegally as children, you have to say “Dreamers” (a phrase irresistibly appealing to journalists, like me, trying to keep their word count down).
You have to say that any immigration legislation providing a path to citizenship for the bulk of the estimated (by the widely respected Pew Research Center) 11 million illegal immigrants is “comprehensive.” You have to say that more restrictive plans are “hardline” and therefore presumably undesirable.
In previous debates over immigration legislation, in 2006, 2007, and 2013, euphemisms held sway. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both sought “comprehensive” legislation, including mass amnesty. That was the policy of every president since mass immigration picked up in the early 1980s.
President Trump, notoriously, campaigned for something different, starting just moments after he stepped off that escalator in Trump Tower in June 2015. His use of confrontation and sometimes vile language strikes many Americans, including me, as distasteful. But it has also helped him frame issues, including immigration, his way.
He was attacked as racist for saying that Mexico “does not send its best.” But Pew Research Center data confirms that immigrants from Mexico have on average the lowest education and skill levels as those from any country. His use of the term “chain migration” was attacked by Dreamer advocate Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as offensive because slaves arrived in North America in chains. This effort at euphemism enforcement was a stretch: People of varying views have been using the term “chain migration” for two decades.
Including Durbin, but the race card is the only card they’ve got.