Why we shouldn’t use the term illegal alien anymore

In my previous post about Massachusetts ballot question 4 (Should illegal aliens be able to get driver's licenses?), I used the term "illegal alien" in the title on purpose, but it broke my heart to do so. In the debates leading up to the election, I heard, saw, and read a lot of arguments regarding the question refer to people as "illegal alien," and I wanted to make my blog title as provocative as possible. Now, I want to clarify a few things.

Let’s start by getting our terminology correct. Aliens are extra-terrestrials from another planet, not people from another country. And “illegal” is not an adjective used to describe a person. This inaccurately labels the person instead of the actions the person has taken. The act of breaking the law is illegal, not the person out of compliance. People break the law all the time in this country. Does that mean a teenager who shoplifts from the mall is illegal? No, we still refer to them as a teenager. Does that mean someone speeding on the Mass Pike is illegal? No, we still refer to them as a driver. So why do we refer to undocumented persons living illegally in the US as illegals? We shouldn’t. It’s dehumanizing and unjust.

In fact, in April 2021, the Biden administration ordered ICE & U.S. immigration enforcement agencies to stop using terms such as “alien,” “illegal alien” and “assimilation” when referring to immigrants in the United States.

The term "illegal alien" is incorrect and actually legally misleading, because it connotes criminality, while presence in the US without proper documents is a civil offense, not a criminal one. It's also a way of ruling a defendant guilty before a verdict is rendered.

In a country where we are innocent until proven guilty, let's not label anyone as aliens until they show us their outer space driver's license.

Comments

Is 5 Little Monkeys Racist?

I’ve seen a lot of Tik Toks debunking children’s nursery rhymes lately. I have two toddlers, so now whenever I hear one of those rhymes, I think about their unsavory origins. But my son loves, loves Five Little Monkeys. He’s just learning to talk, and can almost say it by himself. I’ve thought about telling him to stop singing it since I learned in the original lyrics it’s not monkeys jumping on the bed, but he just gets so much joy from singing it as he jumps up and falls down, I thought... no harm, no foul, right? As long as he thinks the song is about monkeys, it’s ok. Until my niece came over one day, and the three toddlers were playing on an old mattress we have on the living room floor for them to jump around on. My son asked me to sing 5 Little Monkeys. At first it was cute, because they literally were jumping on the bed, but then I took a good look at the three of them. My kids are half-Guatemalan but very fair, like I am. Whereas my niece is half-black, and her skin happens

Why You Should Travel with Little Kids

I took my first cross-country road trip when I was six-weeks-old. My parents loaded me up in an old Ford Wagoneer and drove me home from my dad's hometown of Pittsburgh, PA, to my hometown of Ojai, CA. After that, we traveled back and forth between the East Coast and the West Coast every summer of my life. A few times we flew, but most years we loaded up the car with the suitcases, the dogs, and the children and drove 3,000 miles across the country. This early exposure to travel instilled within me a joy of seeing the world, and since that first trip I have visited 34 states and 14 countries. And I hope to share that same joy with my own little ones. Traveling with children can be hard--it disrupts their nap schedules, may involve crossing timelines, and definitely pushes everyone beyond their comfort zones. But seeing different countries and different parts of our country as children gives them a greater appreciation for cultural and regional differences, and it widens their exper

Reflections on Immigrant Life and the American Dream by a New Citizen

Buenos días estudiantes de sexto grado. Mi nombre es Audelina Barrios, and I am a former student of Fuller Middle School. Soy de Guatemala, y viví mis primeros trece años de mi vida en mi tierra natal, pero desafortunadamente perdí a mis padres cuando tenía 12 años. Mi hermano y yo fuimos huérfanos por un año hasta que tomamos la decisión de empezar nuestro viaje hacia los United States to meet our oldest siblings. In August of 2014 we finally arrived in the land of our dreams, the United States. During our first 4 months in the US, we lived in New Jersey with my oldest sister, Rosa, and went to a school where ESL didn't even exist. I was paired up with the only Latino in the school y sin saber una palabra en inglés. I felt like an outsider because I had no other friends and like I wasn't even part of the school system. In January 2015 my older brother Francisco and his wife, Mae, adopted us and we moved to Framingham. My first school in Framingham was Fuller Middle School

Search This Blog