During his State of the Union Address last week, President Joe Biden had a brief moment of honesty when he described the Venezuelan national charged with the murder of a 22-year-old Georgia college student as “an illegal.” 

After his remarks, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rushed to the set of CNN to correct Biden. 

“He should have said undocumented,” Pelosi explained. 

Biden quickly followed suit with an apology to the killer during an interview with MSNBC. 

“[He’s] An undocumented person. And I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s ‘undocumented,’” Biden said, adding he regretted using the term “illegal.”

For years, the left and their allies in the media have been manipulating language on the issue of illegal immigration.

According to the U.S. code, “illegal alien” is the correct legal and factual term to use when describing someone in the United States without permission or authorization. In fact, there are rows and rows of text using the term.

“Federal immigration law uses the term ‘illegal alien.’ For example, 8 U.S.C. §1365 is a provision that deals with a reimbursement program the federal government has for states that are incarcerating illegal aliens. Its very title refers to ‘illegal aliens,’ and that term is used in the statute itself, which defines an illegal alien as anyone ‘who is in the United States unlawfully,’” the Heritage Foundation documents. “The Supreme Court, which has decided numerous cases involving federal immigration law, also uses the correct, precise legal term of ‘illegal alien.’”

And yet, we don’t see the proper term used by politicians in charge of legislation or by Biden in the executive branch, which is tasked with protecting the nation’s borders. 

In the media legacy outlets and wire services like the Associated Press — which feed stories to hundreds of publications and other news platforms — are constantly changing language to appease the left and dilute the damaging consequences of illegal immigration. Language has been changed from “illegal alien,” to “migrants,” “undocumented immigrants, “undocumented Americans,” “newcomers” and more outrageously inaccurate descriptions. It’s a rhetorical effort to erase the crime of breaking into the country and to cheapen the meaning of U.S. citizenship. 

Here at Townhall, we use correct language to report on illegal immigration. We will never apologize for properly classifying those who illegally enter the country as illegal aliens — especially when charged with the murder of American citizens. 

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