EU Passes Anti-Illegal Alien Measures

Of course, the New York Times doesn't call them illegal aliens. That would clearly be a violation of their style guide. Instead they're undocumented migrants. But the interesting story here is how the high-minded European Union is cracking down on illegals, plans to put them in detention centers and ban them from entering the EU for five years thereafter. Yet nowhere in the story do we see the terms harsh, mean-spirited or racist, which surely we'd see if, say, Republicans tried to do the same thing here.

Why the double standard?

Update: James Kirchick at Contentions nails it.

The passage of this measure could not have come at a more opportune time to expose Europe’s hypocrisy. Just last week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that enemy combatants captured on foreign soil have habeus corpus rights. The decision was predictably applauded by Europe’s chattering class, to whom, we are endlessly lectured, Guantanamo represents a “stain” on our national reputation.