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The Colorado House of Representatives passed a bill this week to change the term illegal aliens to undocumented worker or foreign national in state laws. (Denver Post file)

Re: House passes bill to strike illegal alien from Colorado laws, April 7 news story.

State Rep. Steve Lebsock sponsored a bill that proposes to modernize the terminology for illegal alien. I agree that the terminology alien is outdated language going back to the Alien Act of 1798. In addition to foreign, alien is also defined as strange or incompatible. The different definitions create confusion.

The proposed replacement terms, foreign national and undocumented worker, are not precise. A foreign national could be a legal visitor. Illegal aliens could be documented workers with false documents. Illegal aliens might not be workers or be students or children too young to work.

I propose using illegal resident. The term is modern, precise, more dignified and has some chance of passing the state Senate.

Steve McCulloch, Greenwood Village

This letter was published in the April 9 edition.

Colorado is looking to clean up its legal language, and it s about time. A question rarely asked is: What s so bad about politically correct speech? I was raised to be correct in what I said, to use language that doesn t wound or demean. Soft words soothe, harsh ones enflame. The state should send needlessly prejudgmental terms of speech to that place where many ethnic slurs and racial labels have gone before: the garbage.

Harry Puncec, Lakewood

This letter was published in the April 9 edition.

Rep. Steve Lebsock should look up the definition of alien before making statements showing his ignorance of the English language. This is what political correctness always does: it warps our lexicon to force everyone to conform to their liberal agendas. Doesn t he know the meaning of illegal either? Will he want next to change Colorado s criminal laws to more polite wording? Perhaps Colorado Code for the Socially Misdirected.

Lauren Kohn, Lakewood

This letter was published in the April 9 edition.

I came to America as a legal immigrant with a green card and became a citizen immediately after I became eligible in 1963. I totally agree that alien is a very poor and offensive term. That these people are here illegally is a fact of life today. Maybe we should have a compromise using the term undocumented immigrants.

Robert Gyepes, Aurora

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