The word “alien” in English means “extraterrestrial” or “foreigner”, and it is the label that United States authorities usually put on immigrants.
But the government of President Joe Biden is determined to bury that term, which can evoke both someone from another country and the alien monster from Ridley Scott’s movie from 1979.
A couple of circulars sent this week by the heads of immigration police ICE and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) order to stop using the term “ alien ” and replace it by “migrant” or “non-citizen.”
They also order to stop referring to the alien without papers as “illegal” and instead call it “undocumented”, as well as replace the word “assimilation” with “integration.”
Troy Miller, the main official of CBP, indicated in his circular that it should be marked “a ton I hear an example ”for the country and its partners in the world, as well as maintaining the dignity of people.
“ The words we use are important and will serve to confer even more that dignity to those who are in our custody. ”
These changes were applauded by defenders of migrants, but criticized by members of the former president’s Republican Party Donald Trump, who used to speak negatively of the “ i l legal aliens ”or“ illegal aliens. ”
In fact, the battle over immigration in the US has a very special chapter in the field of vocabulary.
Border crisis?
Another term that the Biden administration wants to avoid is “crisis”, at least to refer to the recent increase in flow irregular migration to the US from Central America and Mexico.
At least . 000 people, mostly Central American, were intercepted crossing the southern US border in March, a 71% more than the previous month and the highest figure in 20 years.
The phenomenon included thousands of unaccompanied minors and has become a sore point for Biden , who promised to treat immigrants with dignity and promotes a legal reform that opens the way to citizenship for millions of undocumented people.
Republicans accuse the president of provoking a “border crisis” because he dismantled Trump’s harsh policies, while from the left they demand a better reception for immigrants.
Biden himself seemed to adjust his vocabulary over the weekend, saying that his government was considering raising the quota of refugees in the US when “The crisis that ended at the border with young people” occurred.
But the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, ruled out on Monday that there is a change of position or a “crisis”
“The president does not feel that the arrival of minors to our border, seeking refuge from violence, economic adversities and other difficult circumstances, is a crisis,” said Psaki.
And he added that Biden feels that it is necessary to address “ the crisis in Central America ” to avoid a greater influx of migrants to the United States. .
Why is it so important for the White House to avoid the word “crisis” at the border?
“’Crisis’ is provocative by its nature, intentionally inviting or inciting perceived panic. It also invites a negative attitude towards those who are considered to be causing the crisis; in this case, immigrants are the easy target, “explains Tammy Vigil, a professor of communication studies at Boston University, to BBC Mundo.
” A beginning ”
Vigil points out that in the immigration debate“ the difference in the choice of words between Biden and Trump is obvious, and those differences reflect differences in attitude. ”
“Trump’s words were simple and provocative; fueled fear and mistrust and oversimplified a complex subject. Biden’s consideration of terminology reflects a deeper care about the subject, ”he adds.
The expert explains, for example, that “calling someone ‘illegal’ indicates that listeners must have a negative attitude towards person. ”
During his presidency, Trump increasingly used the expression“ il l egal aliens ”or“ illegal alien ”, until repeating it almost daily in the Acts of the failed campaign for his re-election last year.
As soon as he arrived at the White House in January, Biden proposed eliminating the word “alien” from the immigration legislation to replace it with “non-citizen”.
The term “ alien ” has also been used offic ially in courts of law and even by some Democratic president in the past.
In his State of the Union address to Congress in 1995, then-President Bill Clinton mentioned four times in less than a minute the phrase “ illegal aliens ” when describing their security measures at the border.
Now the expression is claimed by Trump allies .
“We use the term ‘ illegal alien ‘ because they are here illegally. This kind of weakness and obsession with political correctness is the reason we’re having a crisis on the border in the first place, ”Republican Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted Monday.
Meanwhile, the The word “assimilation” that the Biden administration seeks to substitute for “integration” was also used by Trump when he launched into politics.
“To have a country, we have to have assimilation. I am not the first to say this (…). This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish, ”Trump said during a Republican debate at 2015, before being elected president.
Norma Mendoza-Denton, a professor of anthropology at the University of California at Los Angeles, explains that in the idea of assimilation to society “immigrants do not do something actively” and “there is a kind of uncomfortable taste of absorption “.
In his opinion, the concept of integration “gives much more participation to the person who is going through the process.”
“The language of former President Trump to talk about immigrants sometimes could not be repeated on the air,” Mendoza-Denton tells BBC Mundo. “The words that are used now are civil enough so that people do not feel denigrated. That is a beginning ”.
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