Advisers to Trump’s transition team on homeland security matters told the Washington Examiner this week that there have already been discussions on doing away with the Biden administration’s politically correct immigration language to talk about illegal immigrants at the border and within the country.
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A second official involved in advising transition officials confirmed that talks on returning to “illegal alien” were true.
“I don’t see anyone at [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] or [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] using any euphemisms for illegal aliens after Jan. 20,” the second official said.
John Fabbricatore, a retired ICE field office director who was named by three sources as the top candidate to lead ICE under Trump, said he had not heard of the talks but supported the notion.
“What is wrong with illegal alien? It connotes no race, religion, or culture,” Fabbricatore wrote in a message Wednesday morning. “It is a purely legal term that was hijacked in an Orwellian attempt to control the messaging about illegal immigration.”
The idea of reverting back to “illegal alien” would come nearly four years after the border crisis overtook President Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office, the same time that Biden administration officials dictated how Department of Homeland Security employees would refer to immigrants in custody.
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The change represented an attempt by the Biden administration to get rid of decades-old legal terms that were used by Republican and Democratic administrations in the past but were increasingly seen by progressive Democrats as inhumane.
Employees were told to start using “noncitizen” or “migrant” for “alien,” “undocumented” for “illegal,” and “integration” for “assimilation.”
For decades, CBP had used “illegal alien” in its news releases and on social media when talking about incidents at the border or inside the United States.
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“This memorandum serves as my official nonconcurrence to the proposed updated terminology for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) communications and materials,” Scott, an agent of 28 years who took over the 20,000-person organization in early 2020 and left his post in August 2021, wrote in a letter ahead of the 2021 announcement. “I will not undermine this effort; however, I cannot endorse it.”
In January 2021, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX) introduced the Correcting Hurtful and Alienating Names in Government Expression Act to prohibit the federal government from using “alien” when referencing a person who is not a U.S. citizen or immigrant because it is “derogatory.” Castro’s bill was similar to Biden’s proposed U.S. Citizenship Act, which calls for “alien” to be changed to “noncitizen.” Both bills have not moved through Congress.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), a senior House Democrat from a border district, refused to get on board.
“I can understand some people are trying to be a little bit more politically correct, but if you look at what the statutes say, they do use the word ‘alien,’” Cuellar said at the time. “That’s what the statute does, so, until the statute changes, some of us will continue to be using the word ‘alien’ on that. That is the word that’s in the statute until we change that.”
The “illegal” versus “undocumented” drama spilled over into Biden’s State of the Union address earlier this year when, during an impromptu moment, Biden responded to goading from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to say the name of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student killed by Jose Antonio Ibarra.
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Biden later walked back the comment after some on the Left found the term offensive, telling MSNBC that he regretted the use of the term.
“I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” Biden said.
Scott declined to comment on the discussions happening.
The White House and Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.