There is renewed controversy over using the term “illegal immigrant” after President Joe Biden apologized for calling a murder suspect an “illegal.” Former President Donald Trump doubled down in a campaign speech over the weekend of March 9 that Biden should apologize for apologizing over the terminology.
Biden was pressed by Republicans to mention the death of Laken Riley during his State of the Union Address. Riley was a college student murdered in Georgia, and the suspect arrested in her case was in the U.S. illegally.
When Biden referred to the alleged murderer as “an illegal,” he received backlash from fellow Democrats. On March 9, Biden told MSNBC he “regretted” the word choice.
“I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” Biden said. “I’m not going to treat any of these people with disrespect.”
While on the campaign trail in Georgia, Trump reacted to Biden’s comments.
“Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Laken’s murderer an illegal,” Trump said. “He didn’t want to call him an illegal, so he apologized. He was illegal alien, he was an illegal immigrant, he was an illegal migrant.”
The terms “undocumented migrant” and “illegal migrant” have been heavily politicized. According to AllSides, a media watchdog group which rates news outlets’ biases, Democrats more often use “undocumented persons,” whereas Republicans more often use “illegal immigrants.”
The same goes for how the media refers to this group of people, according to AllSides. Left-leaning news outlets largely refer to “undocumented migrants” while right-leaning news outlets largely refer to “illegal immigrants” in their immigration coverage.
Journalists typically write in AP style. The “AP Stylebook” sets ethical standards across the board in this industry, however, The Associated Press has a left-leaning bias, according to AllSides.
While it used to be acceptable to interchange illegal immigrant and undocumented person, in 2013, AP updated its rulebook.
“Except in direct quotes essential to the story, use ‘illegal’ only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant.”
News anchors, reporters and media outlets largely use the term “undocumented immigrants” to abide by AP style. However, AllSides has found there are flaws in both terms.
AllSides said the term undocumented immigrant “is overly vague. It doesn’t clearly convey the illegal nature of the act in question.”
According to AllSides, the term illegal immigrant is “technically imprecise because individuals themselves cannot be ‘illegal,’ though their actions may be.”
AllSides said the terms mean the same thing and the definition of both is likely clear to any audience. The term used to describe people who are in the country illegally will vary depending on an individuals political preferences and news outlets of choice.