DeSantis Schools Reporter on the Vast Difference Between ‘Undocumented Immigrants’ and ‘Illegal Aliens’
Chuck Schumer in July 2009: “When we use phrases like ‘undocumented workers,’ we convey a message to the American people that their government is not serious about combatting illegal immigration.”

At a Friday press conference, a reporter from Jacksonville asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) if there was a plan in place to help industries that rely on “undocumented immigrants” for labor after President Donald Trump’s mass deportations are carried out.
The governor visibly bristled at the term “undocumented immigrants” and proceeded to straighten the reporter out in his inimitable way.
Interrupting the reporter in mid-question, DeSantis said, “Well, you know … so the federal government has made clear that the statutory term—it’s not undoc—they’re illegal aliens. That’s the statutory term. That’s what it is. And I think it’s to try to water down.
He continued, “I mean, like, undocumented, it’s like if I get in my car and I forget my wallet. Okay, I don’t have my document on me like my driver’s license. But, I mean, I still have a right to drive. I just made a mistake. This is intentional to come in illegally. It’s not just a question of missing a document. It’s a question of, you know, you violated the law that was very clear and knowingly and with the help of the cartels in many cases.”
The reporter replied, “I’ll rephrase that. So, Florida is home to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who are—illegal aliens, if you want to call it, who are working in areas of agriculture, farming, construction, hospitality. I’m just wondering, once we start to see, you know, the significant roundups of these people, is there a plan in place to help those industries, to prevent those industries from experiencing true hardship, financial hardship?”
“So, here’s what I’d say,” the governor replied. “They made the same arguments in [20]23 when we did our immigration [inaudible] We did e-verify. … Any of those industries, when they hire new people, they’ve got to verify their immigration status. Otherwise, they can’t work.
BRILLIANT — DESANTIS SETS REPORTER STRAIGHT ON ILLEGALS.
How can you not love this. The vocabulary is changing, and quickly.pic.twitter.com/b7hE6oE07r
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 24, 2025
DeSantis was right to take the reporter to task over his words. And there was even a time that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) would have agreed with him.
In a July 2009 speech about immigration at Georgetown University, Schumer told his audience, “When we use phrases like ‘undocumented workers,’ we convey a message to the American people that their government is not serious about combatting illegal immigration, which the American people overwhelmingly oppose. … I think it is illegal and wrong.”
Don’t take Gov. Desantis’ word for it. Let’s listen to Chuck @SenSchumer spell it out. pic.twitter.com/oOFPL2BiW5
— Carlo 🇺🇲 🇮🇹 (@IsItSnowin) January 24, 2025
Fifteen years later, the American people still overwhelmingly oppose illegal immigration. But Schumer and the rest of his party have completely reversed their position on the issue. They now refer to illegal aliens as undocumented immigrants.
Language—the words we choose, what we call things—matters more than it may appear. That’s because control of language is often the first step toward indoctrination.
One of the earliest instances of the U.S. government attempting to control our language (at least that I can recall) came during the Obama administration. Then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano suggested replacing the term “Islamic terrorism” with “man-caused disasters,” arguing the former was discriminatory. While “man-caused disasters” never really caught on, the effort had been a success: the modifier, “Islamic,” quietly disappeared, and terrorist acts were simply referred to as “terrorism.”
Around the same time, “global warming” was replaced with “climate change,” because the best and the brightest recognized that the planet wasn’t heating up quite as dramatically as Al Gore had predicted it would. They quickly realized that by calling it “climate change” instead, they could stir public concern and, in turn, use the issue to consolidate political power.
Over the years, Democrats introduced novel terms like “inclusivity” and “equity,” subtly reshaping cultural narratives. Slowly, a new “woke” ideology took root in America, reshaping the perspectives of half the nation.
The Biden administration took things even further by advancing the second frontier of indoctrination: censorship.
The bottom line is simple: words matter. It’s time to reclaim control of the national vocabulary.
Another four years of Democratic rule, and America would have resembled Oceania from Orwell’s 1984.
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
A new phrase is already being trotted out: “Unauthorized Citizens”. It’s like whack-a-mole with them.
Next step: “Unregisterable Citizens.” Then roll out the usual gang of “civil rights” grafters to “demand an end to Jaime Crow.”
Rapist = Unauthorized Boyfriend
Bank Robber = Unauthorized Customer
Shoplifter = Unauthorized Shopper
Car Jacker = Unauthorized Chauffer
Terrorist Bomber = Unauthorized Civil Engineer
Hijacker = Unauthorized Pilot
Because progressives started calling criminals ‘justice-impacted individuals’ about three-years, there’s at least a 50% every one of those above phrases could be adopted, no matter how crazy they seem to normal people.
Yes, and real women have a new name too: “Non-transgender women”
Why not call them what they are, indentured servants to Democrat “Massas”?
Oh no! Who will pick our Arugala?
Never knew his name was Juan Galtzoles.
We have always been at war with Oceana.
What happened to fuzzy, it’s her man
They mean the same thing. Like furze and gorse.
One of the two is a euphemism designed to confuse and deceive. Is that what you want?
It’s like black, negro, and African American. They were successively meant get rid of the negative associations of the prior term, but each in turn took on the same negative connotations, so that today they all mean the same thing.
1962, VERY much segregated New Orleans — I’m coming down the stairs of an all “Colored” school (add that one to your list) and catch 2 young boys fighting. Cause of the fight? “He called me black!”
Wow. Then 10 years later, we were told to call them black.
Sort of like murderer and ‘involuntary end of life coordinator’ are the same?
If you use end of life coordinator for murderers, they wind up meaning the same thing, i.e. the connotations as well as the denotations are the same. The people that they refer to define the word, rather than the intended reverse, the word defining the people that it refers to. The trick is very time limited, in other words, and quickly stops working.
The “time out” for various terms depends very much on the degree John and Jane Q. Public have any interaction with, or accurate information about, the person/people behind the term. And the degree to which the person is personally a problem for John and Jane.
…the modifier, “Islamic,” quietly disappeared, and terrorist acts were simply referred to as “terrorism.”
The standard phrase used by media conservatives is “radical Islamic terrorism,” which is redundant, since all terrorism is radical. I presume this phrase is used due to pressure from Muslims.
“What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims!” –Norm MacDonald
DeSantis is the real deal. Sen. Schumer is a real creep.
DeSantis will do whatever will position him for President, as he sees it. No deep analysis of anything. All hair, in other words.
You’re vastly outnumbered (again). DeSantis is enormously popular here in Florida. Who’s your Governor and are you a supporters?
We await your reply.
Part of the MAGA renaissance/Enlightenment that is seeing “DEI,” “affirmative action,” “ESG” and other Dhimmi-crat euphemisms and policies deservedly tossed on the trash heap, should also bring about the end of most of leftists’ wretched, dishonest and corrosive euphemisms and propaganda lexicon; at least where the federal government is concerned. “Assault rifle;” “justice-involved youth” and “undocumented immigrant” — to name only a few.
Really
Where is fuzzy?
Did she leave the site or transfer onto another blog of the professors?
I kind of miss her calling me
The worst person in the world
The problem with “undocumented” is that in most cases it isn’t true. Many illegal immigrants have multiple sets of documents, more than most legal people have. It’s just that none of these documents belong to them.
This was very true back after the Reagan Amnesty. Every two bit flea market in Texas had lots of documents for sale at very cheap prices. Lots of criminal cases of misuse of Social Security Account Numbers (causing people who actually had the numbers problems with IRS wanting to ding them for failing to include those earnings on their tax return), falsification of documents to qualify for welfare (and the Amnesty), etc. Hospital personnel were being paid $25.00 for matching name (preferably Hispanic) and SSAN. This matching made working so much easier and they could stay on that job longer as they passed the initial 6 month SSA check of name and number mismatches. IRS could take up to three years to catch up with unreported income.
Calling an illegal immigrant an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “undocumented pharmacist”
I knew a few gals decades ago who could have been characterized as “undocumented porn stars”. Oh, memories of my youth, but I digress…
Leave a Comment