US Library of Congress stops using term ‘illegal alien’, judging it offensive

The US Library of Congress has announced it will no longer use “illegal aliens” as a bibliographical term, saying the once-common phrase had become offensive.

The library will now use “noncitizens” and “unauthorised immigration” when referring to individuals and the larger phenomenon of people residing in the country illegally. The library called the words more precise as well as less offensive.

The change was prompted by a group of students from Dartmouth College, who urged the Library of Congress to scrap the term. The group — known as CoFIRED, for the Dartmouth Coalition for Immigration Reform, Equality and DREAMers — was assisted by the American Library Association.

Melissa Padilla, a student in her last year at the New Hampshire university, recalls her freshman year, when she “decided to explore [her] identity as an undocumented immigrant”.

While researching the topic, Padilla realized she frequently read the words “illegal alien”. She contacted fellow members of CoFIRED, and they made their appeal to the Library of Congress in 2014. “I think a university should be free of the racist phrases I heard growing up,” she said.

The Library of Congress established the catalogue subject heading “aliens, illegal” in 1980 and revised it to “illegal aliens” in 1993.

Although the latter has been heard frequently during the current presidential campaign — along with “illegals” — it has fallen out of favour in some circles, and the Library of Congress noted the trend in an executive summary released on March 22.