The Washington Post and other sources frequently use the term "immigrants rights" when they're in fact refering to the rights of either illegal aliens together with legal immigrants, or simply illegal aliens. This abuse of the language goes hand in hand with, for instance, refering to those who want to enforce the law as "hard-liners" and refering to those who want to bring in sixty million legal immigrants - and countless illegal aliens - over the next twenty years as "moderates".

A case in point is the article "Immigrant Rights Groups Split Over Senate Bill" by Anushka Asthana.

Various groups are refered to as "pro-immigrant rights groups", "liberal immigrant rights advocates", "pro-immigration groups", "liberal, pro-immigrant rights advocates", or "Immigrant rights groups". The ILRC is a "San Francisco-based organization that aims to advance immigrant rights".

Read up on the groups quoted and see if they fit the WaPo's definitions or not:

National Immigration Forum

National Council of La Raza

Rick Swartz

Immigrant Legal Resource Center

National Immigration Forum

One of those quoted is Michele Waslin. Here's more about her:

Consider this e-mail from Michele Waslin, La Raza's director of Immigration Policy Research, to her members denouncing Sen. Lamar Alexander's proposal to provide government grants to immigrants who want to learn English and American history and to organizations offering those courses. (I'd be happy with a law that simply trained new immigrants not to be "offended" all the time.)

Even though this potentially meant free money for La Raza, Waslin — of the Guadalajara Waslins — ominously warned that while the amendment "doesn't overtly mention assimilation, it is very strong on the patriotism and traditional American values language in a way which is potentially dangerous to our communities."

Can you really trust whether the Washington Post is telling you the truth?

Reuters' Jon Hurdle offers "Rights groups sue Pennylvania town on immigrant law." The "rights groups" in question are, among others, the far-left, illegal immigration-supporting ACLU and PRLDEF.

Let's take a look at the first paragraph:

A Pennsylvania town that passed one of the toughest immigration laws in the United States this week overstepped its authority, said a civil-liberties group which announced plans on Friday to sue.

I guess calling the ACLU a "civil-liberties group" is faily accurate, but only because that's in their name. In this case, they are not only trying to protect civil liberties, since those only apply to citizens. They are also specifically trying to protect the rights of illegal aliens.

And, since illegal immigration is, obviously, illegal, and there are already various federal laws on the books relating to it, one wonders whether calling it "tough" is completely accurate. Perhaps "similar to federal laws" might be more accurate. And, while all laws dealing with illegal immigration are "immigration laws", the use of that phrase might give the false impression that legal immigration is involved.

Minor points? Not really, since this is how pro-illegal immigration propaganda worms its way into news coverage, through this slight manipulation of the facts and the language.

Further on, we're informed that the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund "represents U.S. Latinos on immigration issues". Obviously, their far-left orientation does not represent the thoughts of all "U.S. Latinos". While they might style themselves as doing that, in actual fact that's incorrect.