NPR: The White House's new site about 'aliens' has nothing to do with UFOs

The use of the word "alien" in the U.S. immigration laws is problematic. But it is frequently the term of choice of the Trump administration in discussing immigration and immigrants.

NPR reports that researchers are speaking out against a new White House web page, saying that it uses dehumanizing language to target immigrants. The site aliens.gov discusses the threat of "aliens," accompanied by the opening theme of The X-Files. The webpage equates undocumented immigrants with extraterrestrials. The administration refers to these individuals as an "it" and claims "they do not belong here." While some may dismiss the wordplay as a joke, Ernesto Castañeda, director of the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University, says that "for a few people, it may be another license to act violently against people that they may think are aliens, undocumented. They may be another incitement to hate crimes and to profiling people."