Activist Demands Other Publications Drop 'Illegal Immigrant' After AP

After the Associated Press on Tuesday decided to drop the term “illegal immigrant” and expunge it from its style guide (used by nearly every journalist), activists then immediately began to demand other publications follow suit.

Jose Antonio Vargas, the illegal immigrant who has gained publicity in recent years after he revealed that he did not have citizenship or legal status, tweeted, “You’re next, @nytimes, @latimes, @washingtonpost, @WSJ. No human being is illegal.”

Later, he even challenged  Fox News to stop using “illegal immigrant” as well.

As Breitbart News’s John Nolte argued, the term “‘illegal immigrant’ is plenty specific” by “attaching an accurate classification to a specific status,” and a “person can be an ‘illegal immigrant’ just as easily as a person can be a ‘bank robber’ or a ‘corrupt journalist.'”

Nolte said it was “Orwellian” for the AP to find “a rationale (and a dumb one) to do what they want to do and disguise it as thoughtful, accurate journalism.”

Jonah Goldberg felt similarly, writing on Twitter, “Orwell weeps,” and the “new AP stylebook ban on ‘illegal immigrant’ probably couldn’t be announced yesterday on account of April Fool’s.”