The Biden government is asking Department of Homeland Security officials to stop using phrases like “illegal alien” in favor of what it says are more “inclusive” terms – part of a broader government effort to change the use of language in immigration .
Director of the US Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), Tracy Renaud, recently signed a memorandum that a USCIS spokesman said “aligns our language practices with government guidance on the use of immigration terminology by the federal government “.
BIDEN IMMIGRATION ACCOUNT CHANGES FROM ‘ALIEN’ TO ‘NOT CITIZEN’ AS PART OF THE REVIEW
Axios reported for the first time that the February 12 memorandum urged authorities to stop referring to people as “strangers” in favor of “non-citizens”. It also tells officials to refer to “undocumented individuals” or “undocumented noncitizens” instead of “illegal aliens”. It also recommends “integration” instead of “assimilation”.
“This change aims to encourage more inclusive language in the agency’s outreach efforts, internal documents and in general communication with stakeholders, partners and the general public,” USCIS spokesman Joe Sowers said in a statement. “The guidance does not affect legal, policy or other operational documents, including forms, in which the use of terms (such as applicant, petitioner, etc.) as defined by the Immigration and Nationality Law would be most appropriate.”
The move is part of a broader government move to change the language on immigration and illegal immigration.
BuzzFeed News reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) employees switched from using “illegal alien” to “noncitizen” in comments to reporters, while then DHS secretary David Pekoske used the term “noncitizen” to refer to illegal immigrants who could be targeted by the ICE.
Meanwhile, an immigration reform bill proposed by the Biden government, along with a series of other radical changes in immigration, would replace the terminology in United States immigration laws.
Although the text of the bill has not yet been released, a bulletin released by Biden’s transition team before taking office said that the bill would remove the word “foreigner” from immigration laws and replace it with “noncitizen”. The fact sheet said the measure “recognizes America as a nation of immigrants”.
“While it may be a symbolic change for some, we have removed the word” foreigner “from the immigration code and replaced it with” non-citizen “, Senator Bob Menendez, D-NJ, who is leading the effort to pass the bill the Senate said last month past: “We will no longer dehumanize the undocumented.”
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Immigration activists and lawmakers have long struggled over immigration-related language. “Alien” has long been used in the United States immigration code and law as a whole, but has been resisted by liberal activists and cities. New York City announced last year that it would no longer refer to “foreigners” or “illegal immigrants”.
Meanwhile, during the Trump administration, there were also battles over conservative language. BuzzFeed News reported in 2019 that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) planned to change all references to the term “foreign” to “foreign” in the agency’s policy manual.
A USCIS spokesman at the time told the media that he was in line with the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).
“According to INA, the term ‘foreigner’ means ‘anyone who is not a citizen or national of the United States’,” they said.
Gillian Turner of Fox News contributed to this report.