Employees of the two main federal immigration services were ordered on Monday to stop referring to migrants as ‘aliens’, an old-fashioned English term often translated as ‘foreigner’ or ‘outsider’ that many people find offensive.
Memos issued by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recommend that agents use words such as “non-citizen” or “migrant.” The change echoes the guidelines of President Joe Biden’s administration, which has reversed many of former President Donald Trump’s strict anti-immigration policies.
Instead of “illegal aliens,” a term that some government officials continued to use in press releases and other documents, CBP and ICE workers should refer migrants to a “undocumented non-citizen” or “undocumented.”
Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said the guidelines were needed to “set a tone and an example” in an agency that also includes the Border Patrol.
“We enforce the laws of our country while preserving the dignity of every individual with whom we interact,” Miller said. “The words we use are important and will serve to bring dignity to those under our care.”
Government critics rejected the new language guidelines.
“We use the term ‘illegal alien’ because they are illegal here,” said Republican Senator Tom Cotton. “This kind of weakness and obsession with political correctness is the reason we have a crisis on the border at all.”
Last Thursday, CBP issued a press release from its Texas office describing a border surveillance operation in the Rio Grande Valley that “resulted in the arrest of 10 illegal aliens.”
However, a statement released from California on Monday appeared to be in line with the memo, describing the rescue of a “lost undocumented resident” near Ocotillo, California.
The language change comes as the federal government grapples with a record number of children and adolescents, mostly Central Americans, trying to enter the country through the southern border.
Under the new rules, it will refer to “unaccompanied foreign children” as “unaccompanied non-civil children,” the memos said. Employees were also instructed to describe the ‘assimilation’ of refugees and immigrants as ‘integration’.
CBP is expelling most adult migrants who attempt to enter the country under a public health order issued at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Biden’s administration allows unaccompanied minors and some families, at least temporarily, while the authorities determine whether they can stay during the asylum procedure or under another legal category.
Biden officials attribute the growing number of immigrants to the Mexican border to a number of factors, including the recent hit of two hurricanes in Central America and the economic havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
Critics blame the government’s actions to reverse some of the hundreds of measures taken during Trump’s tenure to curb legal and illegal immigration, and support a proposal allowing those already in the country to stay .