RENAMING A CONDITION DOES NOT AMELIORATE IT.

Put bluntly, "Calling a behavior a less judgmental name doesn't make it any less bad."

Somehow, though, Our Progressive Betters persist.  "The Biden administration has ordered federal immigration enforcement agencies to nix the use of terms like 'illegal alien' and 'assimilation' when referring to illegal immigrants, in favor of more 'inclusive language,' according to a report on Monday."

It's possible that a quarter-century or so of science fiction has changed the principal meaning of those terms, and I can't wait for the first report of a tween wondering where the spacemen were upon first learning about the Alien and Sedition Act.

What do we get in its place?  "According to the document, 'alien' will become 'noncitizen or migrant,' 'illegal' will be called 'undocumented,' and 'assimilation' will be refered to as 'integration.'"

"Integration" might be more accurate, insofar as cultural evolution is about exchange.  "Give new arrivals an America to buy into, and an America that buys into the new arrivals, and we'll be OK."  Jonah Goldberg meditates on a more recent eruption of circumlocution that you really ought to read, dear reader.  One observation he makes, "Part of the wonderful implicit bargain of a liberal order is that everyone cuts everyone else some slack," is germane to my central point, although one of several points he offers.

I can't wait, though, for some critical studies type to pounce on that "integration" as alluding to an older, less enlightened notion of civil rights that might implicitly endorse existing systems of power.

In addition, the sentiments leading to the issuance of the order are naïve.  "The words we use matter and will serve to further confer that dignity to those in our custody."  Maybe.  Those handcuffs on the undocumented noncitizen are the same handcuffs that would go on an illegal alien.  And people who push back against euphemism, which often involves burdening the language with a phrase where a word would do, can cast the new words in a bad light.  "No matter what polite term the Guardians of Woke Manners agree on, it is always possible to say that term in a sarcastic way, or to simply use the scatological term."  Or make finger quotes, or imitate a bad amateur thespian orating over Caesar's corpse.