US under Biden will no longer call migrants ‘illegal aliens’

Employees of the two main US immigration enforcement agencies have been directed to stop referring to migrants as “aliens”, a dated term many people consider offensive.

Memos issued on Monday by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), told employees to use the words “noncitizen” or “migrant”.

The change reflects guidelines set by the Biden administration, which is reversing many of the anti-immigrant policies of former president Donald Trump.

Instead of “illegal aliens”, which was still being used by some government officials in press releases and elsewhere, CBP and ICE employees should instead use “undocumented non-citizen” or “undocumented individual”, according to the memos.

Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller said the directives were necessary to “set a tone and example” at an agency that included the Border Patrol.

“The words we use matter and will serve to further confer that dignity to those in our custody,” Miller said.

But administration critics dismissed the new language guidelines.

“We use the term ‘illegal alien’ because they’re here illegally,” said Sen Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas. “This kind of weakness and obsession with political correctness is why we’re having a crisis on the border in the first place.”

As recently as last Thursday, CBP issued a press release out of Texas that described a Border Patrol operation in the Rio Grande Valley “resulting in the apprehension of ten illegal aliens”.

But a release on Monday seemed to comply with the memo, describing the rescue of a “lost undocumented non-citizen”.