This is what happens when political correctness distorts clear and descriptive language. Immigration reform activists have insisted on removing the phrase illegal immigration from the political lexicon, despite the fact that the term is both accurate and objective. Once that happens, it’s easy for the weak-minded to forget that we have a fairly generous legal immigration system that illegal immigrants bypassed and violated on their entry into this country. And by “the weak-minded,” I mean Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, as Doug Powers notes at the Boss Emeritus’ site:

I think the president was clearly articulating that his position — the Democrats position — is that we need comprehensive immigration reform. We have 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country that are part of the backbone of our economy. And that is not only a reality but a necessity. And that it would be harmful if — the Republican solution that I’ve seen in the last three years is that we should just pack them all up and ship them back to their own countries, and that in fact it should be a crime and we should arrest them all. I mean that was the legislation that Jim Sensenbrenner advanced a couple of years ago.

Oh noes! Republicans want to make a crime … a crime crime! Maybe Rep. Wasserman-Schultz should familiarize herself with the law before attempting to change it, and certainly before she attempts to demagogue Republicans on the issue of crime and punishment as well as immigration.