Employees of the two major federal immigration agencies were instructed Monday to stop referring to migrants as “aliens,” an outdated English term that often translates as “foreigner” or “foreigner.” considered offensive.
Memos issued by the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recommend that officers use words such as “non-citizen” or “migrant.” The change reflects the guidelines set by the government of President Joe Biden, who has reversed many of the strict anti-immigration policies set by former President Donald Trump.
Instead of “illegal aliens,” a term some government officials continued to use in press releases and other documents, CBP and ICE employees should refer to migrants as “undocumented noncitizens.” or “undocumented individual,” according to memos.
Troy Miller, CBP’s interim commissioner, said the guidelines were needed to “set a tone and an example” in an agency that includes the Border Patrol.
“We exercise the laws of our country and at the same time maintain the dignity of every individual with whom we interact,” Miller said. “The words we use are important and will serve to give dignity to those in our custody.”
Government critics rejected the new language guidelines.
“We use the term‘ illegal alien ’because they are here illegally,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton said. “This kind of weakness and obsession with the politically correct is the reason we have a border crisis in the first place.”
Just last Thursday, CBP issued a press release from its Texas office describing a Border Patrol operation in the Rio Grande Valley that “resulted in the arrest of 10 illegal aliens.”
However, a statement released Monday from California appeared to comply with the memo, describing the rescue of a “lost undocumented noncitizen” near Ocotillo, California.
The change in language comes at a time when the federal government is dealing with a record number of children and adolescents, mostly Central Americans, trying to enter the country across the southern border.
Under the new rules he will refer to “unaccompanied foreign children” as “unaccompanied noncitizen children,” according to memos. Employees were also instructed to describe the “assimilation” of refugees and immigrants as “civic integration”.
CBP is expelling most adult migrants trying to enter the country in inclination to a public health order issued at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Biden government is allowing unaccompanied minors of an adult and some families to remain, at least temporarily, in what authorities determine if they can stay through the asylum process or under some other legal category. .
Biden government officials attribute the growing number of immigrants on the border with Mexico to several factors, including the recent scourge of two hurricanes in Central America and the economic devastation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
Critics blame this on government actions to reverse some of the hundreds of measures put in place during the Trump administration to curb legal and illegal immigration, and to support a proposal that would allow those who are already in power to remain. country.