Immigration Law: Biden wants to remove this controversial word from US law

Immigration Law: Biden wants to remove this controversial word from US law

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But the symbolic meaning is great.

Biden’s proposed bill, if passed, would remove the word ‘foreigner’ from U.S. immigration laws, replacing it with the term ‘non-citizen.’

The term ‘illegal alien’, long hailed as an dehumanizing riot by proponents of immigration rights, has become another lightning rod during the Trump era – with some top federal officials encouraging its use and several states and local governments took measures to ban. It.
“The language change on the first day of this government, with Kamala Harris, the daughter of immigrants, is not only symbolic to me … it is fundamental,” said Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant whose organization, Define American, strives for more accurate depictions of immigrants.

“How we describe people really sticks. It affects how we treat them,” he says. “The way we talk about immigrants shapes the policy. It gives a framework of the issues that are really at stake here. It gives recognition that we are talking about people and families here.”

What do the laws say now

U.S. Code currently defines “alien” as “any person who is not a citizen or citizen of the United States.”

Officials have in the past pointed out the prevalence of the term in U.S. laws to defend their word choices.

In 2018, Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, instructed prosecutors to refer to someone who is illegal in the United States as an “illegal alien,” with the U.S. code in an agency-wide email.
Justice: uses 'illegal aliens,' not 'undocumented'

The term “foreigner” was often used by President Trump in speeches because he warned about what he saw as the dangers of uncontrolled illegal immigration.

Trump spoke in one of his last speeches as president at the Mexican border last week, using the term at least five times.

“We were the perennial boogeyman in the Trump administration,” Vargas said. “Every time Trump was in trouble, he started talking about the ‘illegals’ and across the border.”

But not everyone in the Trump administration was a supporter of the language.

In an interview with the Washington Post published shortly before he resigned as acting secretary of Homeland Security in 2019, Kevin McAleenan told the newspaper he avoided using the term “illegal aliens” and described people as “migrants”. “.

“I think the words matter a lot,” McAleenan was quoted as saying by the Post. “If you alienate half of your audience through your terminology, it will hinder your ability to ever win an argument.”

This is not the first attempt to change such wording

California hit ‘stranger’ in 2015 from the state’s labor laws.

New York City removed the term from its charter and administrative code last year.
In guidelines issued in 2019, the city of New York banned the term “illegal alien” when used “for the purpose of humiliating, humiliating or harassing someone.” Violations, the city warned, could result in fines of up to $ 250,000.
Last year, two lawmakers in Colorado filed a bill to replace the term “illegal alien” with “immigrant without papers.” The bill never reached the state Senate floor for a vote.

Prank callers targeted the term early in the Trump administration

One of the first times the use of the term ‘alien’ attracted widespread attention during the Trump administration was in 2017 after officials published a hotline for victims of ‘crimes committed by removable aliens’.

Prank callers quickly flooded the line with reports about space creatures, and shared examples on social media of their comments about Mars and UFOs.

Top-level trolling overloads ICE's undocumented immigrant hotline with calls about aliens in space

But Vargas says the term and others who have demonized immigrants is no laughing matter.

“Language has power. And I think we saw it in the Trump administration, how it used dehumanizing terms and how it dismantled language and dismantled people in turn,” Vargas said. “If you call them ‘aliens’, you’re going to put them in jail, of course, you’re going to lock them up, of course you would not mind separating small children from them.” parents.”

Vargas says the new government’s effort to use more respectful language gives him hope that some Americans’ views of undocumented immigrants may shift as well. If he changes just one word, he could have a profound impact on millions of people.

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