On April 2, 2013, the Associated Press announced a significant change in its style guidance: it dropped the term "illegal immigrant" and advised against using "illegal" to describe a person. The AP clarified that "illegal" should only refer to an action, such as "illegal immigration," and not label individuals. This shift was part of a broader effort to avoid labeling people and focus on behavior, AP Senior Vice President and Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll explained in a blog post on that date.
As style decisions go, this shift has had the most profound consequences in public policy in recent memory. By dropping the word "illegal" entirely, these illegal border crossers are being portrayed as harmless migrants.
If it had been just the AP that had adopted this style of writing, that would have been one thing. However, the AP Stylebook, formally known as The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law, is a widely used guide for writing and editing in journalism and other professional communications. It provides standardized rules and recommendations on grammar, punctuation, usage, and journalistic conventions. It's often considered the gold standard for American news writing, influencing newspapers, broadcasters, and digital media outlets worldwide. For nearly a dozen years, all media outlets have adopted the AP's standard when discussing the global problem of illegal migration.
Consider the recent news story in The New York Times describing the high-stakes altercation between the Trump administration and Chief Judge James E. Boasberg regarding Venezuelan deportees. We reproduce two entire paragraphs from The Times, highlighting the word "immigrants."
"A federal judge in Washington expressed skepticism on Friday about the Trump administration's policy of using a powerful and rarely invoked wartime statute to summarily deport immigrants from the country.
The judge, James E. Boasberg, suggested at an hourlong hearing that the White House had stretched the meaning of the statute, the Alien Enemies Act, by applying it to scores of Venezuelan immigrants. The administration accused those immigrants of being members of a violent street gang and flew them to El Salvador last weekend with little or no due process."
So accepted is the AP style guide by the Times that the reader is never introduced to a crucial fact. Gang members or otherwise, each of those deported had crossed America's border illegally in violation of INA Section 275 (8 U.S.C. § 1325) - Improper Entry by an Alien. This section makes it a federal criminal misdemeanor for an alien to enter or attempt to enter the U.S. at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, elude examination or inspection by immigration officers, or enter or attempt to enter by misrepresentation (e.g., using false documents). The Venezuelan illegal immigrants were guilty of all three conditions.
A first offense is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to 6 months in prison and/or a fine. A subsequent offense becomes a felony, with up to 2 years in prison. However, prosecution is not automatic—many are processed civilly for deportation instead, which is what the Trump administration sought to do. The problem is that Venezuela refused to readmit its citizens who had violated U.S. law, forcing the Trump administration to strike a deal with a third country to house and detain them.
In Judge Boasberg's wisdom, all these facts and the laws governing them are irrelevant, as is the truth that Trump was following the law by executing the intent of Congress in deporting illegal aliens. What matters to the judge is that Trump did not obey his verbal orders, later followed by his written orders, that these deportees should have been returned to the United States—because Trump used a rarely used 1798 act that has been employed only three times since, all when America was at war with an adversary.
The shift in the AP style guide is also contrary to the government's usage of the term "illegal alien." This term is used in provisions like INA § 274A (8 U.S.C. § 1324a), first passed in 1952, which addresses unlawful employment and includes references to "illegal aliens" in the context of hiring restrictions (e.g., "hiring…an illegal alien" in post-1986 amendments). It also appears in older sections or notes tied to the 1952 text. The Federal Register, the daily journal of U.S. government actions, includes proposed rules, executive orders, and notices that often cite or interpret the INA. "Illegal alien" appears more frequently here due to its use in policy discussions, especially in recent years, with some estimates suggesting 400-500 times. In effect, the AP style guide ignores government language and terminology to serve its woke vision.
In addition, by dropping the word "illegal" to describe those who crossed the border or overstayed their visas, the AP and the various media outlets that follow its style guide are discriminating against “legal” immigrants. America has a storied legacy of welcoming immigrants from around the world who are granted permission to visit, study, or work using an alphabet soup of visa categories. Some visas, such as the H-1B or L-1, are dual-intent, meaning beneficiaries can enter the United States legally as nonimmigrants but can petition the government to convert their status to becoming legal immigrants (permanent residents) with a pathway to becoming United States citizens. Hundreds of thousands of others routinely immigrate to America to join their spouses, children, parents, or siblings. In the AP's leftist vision, people who blatantly violate our immigration laws must be grouped with those who abide by our rules and wait patiently, sometimes for decades, to enter the United States legally. According to the AP, everyone is an immigrant. Period.
It is through language that humans communicate, and improper or inaccurate language, like dropping the word "illegal" when describing immigrants who violated our laws, feeds as much into misinformation as rogue posts on social media against which the Left is always ready to wage war.
With most journalists identifying as Democrats and left-leaning outlets dominating the media landscape, language rewrites aren’t neutral—they’re partisan. The erasure of “illegal” works in harmony with the Democrats’ open-door agenda to make sure they can be the only ruling party for decades to come. President Trump must call this out and put things back on track.
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