To understand how the immigration debate has unfolded over the past 30 years, it is helpful to consider the language we use when discussing it. One often hears of “nativists” who oppose immigration and who, by implication, loathe immigrants. Yet it is rare that we hear of “immigrationists” who are ideologically committed to higher immigration levels and who are quick to dismiss legitimate concerns about the skill levels and earning potential of new immigrants as nothing more than veiled racism. Those who advocate increased immigration levels and the granting of legal status to unauthorized immigrants are the partisans of “comprehensive immigration reform.” But what of those who call for a different comprehensive immigration agenda? If your goal is to encourage unauthorized immigrants to return to their native countries and to reduce legal-immigration levels, or at least to limit the influx of less skilled immigrants, you are not in favor of comprehensive reform. Instead, you are a “restrictionist” — a term that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as “reformer.”
Why is language so important? The words we use to describe the immigration debate shape how the debate unfolds. If you casually follow the politics of immigration, and you’ve been told time and again that everyone sensible and humane favors reform and that only nativist restrictionist xenophobes oppose it, chances are you’ll just leave it there.
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