A group of Republicans has launched legislation that would require the Library of Congress to keep "illegal aliens" as a subject heading.
The Washington Examiner reports that Rep. Diane Black, a Republican from Tennessee, posted on her Facebook page that the change is "political correctness run amok."
The Library of Congress announced the change March 22, stating that the heading of "aliens" was "frequently misunderstood."
The library's Policy and Standards Division decided it will be changed to "noncitizens." The heading "illegal aliens" will be split into two headings, "noncitizens" and "unauthorized immigration."
"You can't make this stuff up: The Library of Congress is banning the use of the phrase 'illegal alien' in its catalog system," she said in her Facebook post. "We can't keep sanitizing this issue and bending our language to the whims of left-wing special interest groups."
"Illegal immigration is just that — illegal," Black said in her post.
Black's bill would require the Library of Congress to keep the terms "aliens" and "illegal aliens." Twenty other Republicans in the House of Representatives support the measure.
The move to make the change began with a Dartmouth College group,
reported Fox News Latino.
The Darthmouth Coalition for Immigration Reform, Equality, and DREAMers, or CoFIRED, first petitioned the Library of Congress on the issue in 2014, but was turned down. The group then motivated librarian associations and others campaign for the change, and now the Library has agreed.
"Illegal aliens is a dehumanizing, racially charged term. It's about changing how we talk about things," said Oscar R. Cornejo Cesares, a sociology major at Dartmouth, to Fox News Latino.
"When we got the news, we were very happy and excited," Cesares said in the Fox News Latino report.
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