Why labels matter when talking about migration

In the quiet halls of history, words once held their place without question—until they don’t.

For more than two centuries, the United States wielded the term "alien" in its laws to describe non-citizens, a label first etched into legal text in 1790 and later codified in 1798. It was a word without a rival at the time, filling a void in the young nation’s lexicon. Yet today, that same term has become a weapon in the arsenal of political rhetoric, its innocuous origins now overshadowed by controversy.

The Actor’s Provocation

During a recent speech in Berlin, an American actor took the stage and declared the word “alien” an insult—a deliberate provocation aimed at the heart of decades of legal tradition. The audience erupted in applause, a reaction that spoke less to the word’s history and more to the modern appetite for outrage. The actor framed his critique as a warning: language itself has become dangerous, divorced from the policies it once described.

But history, as it often does, complicates the narrative. The actor traced his own lineage to the Mayflower, the ship that carried his ancestors from England in the 1600s. He painted their journey as one of aspiration, a pursuit of safety and opportunity—mirroring the narratives of today’s migrants. Yet the comparison fractures under scrutiny: those settlers arrived as colonizers, not refugees fleeing war or destitution. The parallel, however emotionally resonant, is built on shaky ground.

A Warning from the Past

Days later, at a human rights conference in Norway, the same speaker amplified his warnings, invoking the specter of dictatorship “monsters.” To drive the point home, he invoked a visit to a Nazi concentration camp, framing modern political discourse as a descent into 1930s-style tyranny. The leap from contemporary debate to historical tragedy is jarring, demanding an almost leap of faith from the audience. Are words truly harbingers of doom, or do they merely reflect the policies they describe?

Meanwhile, in the relentless churn of headlines, another label sticks: the president is branded a “maniac.” Such terms are sticky—they linger, resonate, and simplify complex realities into a single, damning syllable. But when language warps overnight, one must wonder: is the crisis truly in the words we choose, or in the decisions they obscure?

The question lingers, unanswered. And in the silence, the debate rages on.