Immigration law: Biden wants to remove controversial word from US laws

by



[ad_1]

But the symbolic significance is enormous.

Biden’s proposed bill, if passed, would remove the word “foreigner” from US immigration laws, replacing it with the term “non-citizen”.

The term ‘illegal alien’, long decried as a dehumanizing insult by immigrant rights advocates, became even more of a lightning rod during the Trump era – with some senior federal officials encouraging its use and several states and local governments taking action to ban it.
“The change of language on the first day of this administration, with Kamala Harris the daughter of immigrants, for me it is not only symbolic … it is fundamental,” said Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant whose The organization, Define American, is pushing for more faithful portraits of immigrants.

“The way we describe people really sticks. It affects the way we treat them, ”he says. “The way we talk about immigrants shapes policy. It defines the real issues here. It recognizes that we are talking about people and families.”

What the laws say now

The US code currently defines “alien” as “any person who is neither a citizen nor a national of the United States.”

In the past, officials have pointed to the term’s prevalence in US laws to defend their word choices.

In 2018, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions asked prosecutors to designate a person who is illegally in the United States as “an illegal alien,” citing the US code in a US-wide email. agency.
Ministry of Justice: use 'illegal aliens' not' without papers'

The term “foreigner” was used often by President Trump in his speeches as he warned of what he saw as the dangers of uncontrolled illegal immigration.

Speaking at the Mexican border last week in one of his last speeches as president, Trump used the term at least five times.

“We were the eternal boogeyman in the Trump administration,” Vargas said. “Every time Trump was in trouble he started talking about the ‘illegals’ and talking about the border.”

But not everyone in the Trump administration was a fan of the language.

In an interview with the Washington Post published shortly before his resignation as acting Secretary of Homeland Security in 2019, Kevin McAleenan told the newspaper he avoided using the term “illegal aliens” and instead described people as “migrants”.

“I think words matter a lot,” McAleenan said, according to the Post. “If you alienate half of your audience through your use of terminology, it will prevent you from winning an argument.”

This is not the first effort to change such a formulation

California struck “alien” from the state’s labor code in 2015.

New York City removed the term from its charter and administrative code last year.
In guidelines released in 2019, New York City banned the term “illegal alien” when used “with intent to demean, humiliate or harass a person.” Violations, the city warned, could result in fines of up to $ 250,000.
And last year, two Colorado lawmakers introduced a bill to replace the term “illegal alien” with “undocumented immigrant.” The bill was never made to the state Senate for a vote.

The jokes targeted the term early in the Trump administration

One of the first times the use of the term “alien” gained wide attention during the Trump administration was in 2017 after officials issued a hotline for victims of “crimes committed by removable aliens “.

Prank callers quickly flooded the alien reporting line, sharing examples on social media of their comments on Martians and UFOs.

High-level trolling overloads ICE's undocumented immigrant hotline with alien calls

But Vargas says the term and others used to demonize immigrants are no laughing matter.

“Language has power. And I think we saw it in the Trump administration, how it used dehumanizing terms and how it degraded language and in turn degraded people,” Vargas says. “If you call them ‘aliens,’ of course you are going to put them in jail, of course you are going to lock them up, of course you won’t worry about separating little children from their parents.”

Vargas says the new administration’s efforts to use more respectful language give him hope that some Americans’ views on undocumented immigrants may also change. Changing a single word, he says, could have a huge impact on millions of people.

[ad_2]

Source link