Fema workers responding to LA fires reportedly told to say ‘alien’ instead of ‘immigrant’

Disaster officials responding to the historic blazes that leveled large swaths of southern California last month received notification from the Trump administration that they must immediately change their vocabulary around gender and immigration, according to an email obtained by 404 Media.

The email instructs employees of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) to cease calling undocumented immigrants “migrants” and instead call them “aliens”. It also directs employees to replace “gender” with “sex”.

The email came just days after Donald Trump signed an executive order titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. That order instructs federal employees to remove “all radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”.

The email was sent to Fema employees in the recovery division of Region 9, which is responding to the Los Angeles wildfires. It includes specific language about how Fema officials should handle immigration: “While the following chart presents examples of terminology that should be replaced, it should not be considered to be comprehensive, particularly in the immigration space.” A chart which follows directs employees to replace words like “integration” with “assimilation”.

In southern California, where residents hail from across the world, one in three Angelenos identifies as an immigrant.

A second email directed Fema officials to immediately cease using any forms that used prohibited language.

“In the event that there is a FEMA pre-printed, standardized form that would cause a violation of the newly established expectations for compliance with EO 14168 Defending Women and DHS Memo re: Immigration Language, employees are directed to refrain from using the form,” the email said. “And to notify your immediate supervisor of the conflict for resolution.”

It’s unclear whether that guidance has slowed Fema’s efforts to assist families recovering from the devastation of the Palisades and Eaton wildfires.

“This is the most 1984 email I’ve ever seen,” a Fema employee told 404 Media. “We’re all just locked in to focus on response and recovery efforts.”