After Vandals Deface Headquarters, CA Paper Will Continue to Use ‘Illegals’

A Santa Barbara, California newspaper will continue to use “illegals” to describe illegal immigrants even after its headquarters were vandalized on late Wednesday evening or early Thursday morning.

After the Santa Barbara News-Press used “illegals” in a headline about illegal immigrants in California receiving driver’s licenses, vandals defaced the front entrance of its building.

According to a Fox News report, the Santa Barbara News-Press “will continue to use the term ‘illegals’ to describe people who enter the U.S. without permission” even after its “front entrance was sprayed with the message ‘The border is illegal, not the people who cross it’ in red paint.”

“It is an appropriate term in describing someone as ‘illegal’ if they are in this country illegally,” the newspaper said in a statement.

The newspaper declared that it would continue to use “illegals” to describe illegal immigrants.

“It has been the practice for nearly 10 years at the Santa Barbara News-Press to describe people living in this country illegally as ‘illegals’ regardless of their country of origin,” the paper said in a statement. “This practice is under fire by some immigration groups who believe that this term is demeaning and does not accurately reflect the status of ‘undocumented immigrants,’ one of several terms other media use to describe people in the Unites States illegally.”

As Fox News noted, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times caved to activists and “banned the phrase” in 2013 “after employing it for decades” because the outlets claimed it “lacked precision.” Pro-illegal immigrants activists and various “salad bowl” ethnic organizations had been pressuring outlets to stop using “illegals” or “illegal immigrants” to describe those in the country illegally.