How the Media Broke the Immigration Debate
22nd January 2025
“Terms like ‘undocumented’ and ‘unauthorized’ can make a person’s illegal presence in the country appear to be a matter of minor paperwork,” wrote Tom Kent, the Associated Press (AP)’s deputy editor for standards and production in 2012. Kent was responding to a policy proposal to eliminate the adjective “illegal” due to its perceived pejorative nature. Six months later, Kent’s guidance was overruled. The New York Times followed suit within a month. Ten years on, after a historic surge in illegal immigration that overwhelmed federal agencies and major cities, many publishers don’t even mention legal status when discussing immigration. So, how did we get here?