DHS Cancels ‘Orwellian Edit’ Replacing ‘Illegal Alien’ with ‘Undocumented Noncitizen’
Craig Bannister | January 23, 2025
During the Biden Administration, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was prohibited from referring to aliens who were illegally in the U.S. as “illegal aliens” – but, that ended on Thursday with a directive by the acting DHS secretary.
In immigration law, illegal aliens are referred to as “illegal aliens.” But, the Biden Administration believed that term reflected poorly on people who break the law in order to enter the country.
So, in April of 2021, the heads of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued memos banning the use of “illegal alien,” in favor of a term with more innocuous connotations, as NPR reported at the time:
“The Biden administration is ordering U.S. immigration enforcement agencies to change how they talk about immigrants.
“The terms ‘illegal alien’ and ‘assimilation’ are out — replaced by ‘undocumented noncitizen’ and ‘integration.’”
https://mrctv.org/blog/craig-bannister/dhs-cancels-orwellian-edit-replacing-illegal-alien-undocumented-noncitizen
