Biden Official Orders Immigration Judges to Stop Using ‘Illegal Alien’ Term
President Joe Biden’s administration has ordered federal immigration judges to stop using the terms “alien” and “illegal alien” to describe illegal aliens living in the United States.
On July 23, Acting Director of the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) Jean King, appointed by the Biden administration in January, issued a memo titled “Terminology” that orders immigration judges and adjudicators to stop using the terms “alien” and “illegal alien.”
Instead, King writes that judges and adjudicators to use the terms “noncitizen,” “migrant,” “undocumented noncitizen,” or “undocumented individual.”
Likewise, judges and adjudicators are ordered to use the terms “unaccompanied noncitizen child” and “UC” when referring to Unaccompanied Alien Children (UACs).
“This Policy Memorandum clarifies proper terminology at the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), and directs EOIR staff, including adjudicators, to use language that is ‘[consistent] with our character as a Nation of opportunity and of welcome,'” King writes.
Center for Immigration Studies’ Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge, said the move is “just one small step removed from telling [immigration judges] how to rule” in that ordering an illegal alien deported “denies that alien ‘opportunities in the United States and is not ‘welcoming’ in the least.”
Already, the Biden administration has barred the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency from using the terms “illegal alien” and “assimilation.” Rather, ICE agents have been ordered to use “noncitizen” and “integration.”
Similarly, staff at the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) were ordered in February to stop using the terms “illegal alien,” “alien,” and “assimilation.”
The term “alien” is regularly used as a legal definition to describe a foreign national in the United States. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) codified the term into law and defines it as “any person not a citizen or national of the United States.”
Despite objections from the Biden administration over the terms “illegal alien” and “assimilation,” the terminology was readily used by civil rights icon Rep. Barbara Jordan (D-TX) who advocated for legal immigration reductions to boost the quality of life, wages, and job opportunities for America’s working and middle class.
In a 1995 op-ed for the New York Times, for instance, Jordan blasted “policies that permit the continued entry of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens and blur distinctions between what is legal and beneficial and what is illegal and harmful.”
Jordan similarly referenced the need for a national assimilation policy, which she called “Americanization.”
“Immigration imposes mutual obligations,” Jordan wrote. “Those who choose to come here must embrace the common core of American civic culture. We must assist them in learning our common language: American English.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
