The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers, currently responding to deadly wildfires in California, have been instructed to change their vocabulary around gender and immigration, according to an email obtained by 404 Media.
The email, sent by the Trump administration, directs employees to stop calling undocumented immigrants “migrants” and refer to them as “aliens”, instead. It further asked to replace the word “gender” with “sex” and cease calling it “integration” and say “assimilation”. According to 404 Media, the subject line of the email read, “For Immediate Compliance.”
The impact of this guidance on FEMA’s efforts to assist families recovering from the wildfires is unclear. The change raised concerns among FEMA employees, with one describing the email as “the most 1984 email I’ve ever seen”. “We’re all just locked in to focus on response and recovery efforts”, a FEMA employee told 404 Media.
The email sent to FEMA includes specific language about how the 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,” the email read, further asking the workers to consult their program counsel for additional language. It also included a chart with specific language guidelines for FEMA officials.
The change in vocabulary is said to be a part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to alter the language federal agencies use. The email came on the heels of President Trump signing an executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. The order directed government employees to replace “all radical gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms”.
The “terminology changes” were emailed to FEMA staff in Region 9’s recovery division, which covers California, Arizona, Nevada, Hawaii and the United States Pacific Islands. The language changes are similar to those required of ICE agents and employees of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The FEMA is a part of DHS. Similar notices have been sent to large parts of the federal institutions, including NASA.