Stay up to date with our Up First newsletter, for all the news you need to start your day."THEY WALK AMONG US," declares a new White House web page in large, luminous green letters against a dark starry background.Above the title is the word "DECLASSIFIED."The website, aliens.gov, continues to talk about the threat of "aliens" with the opening credits of "The X-Files" playing in the background, spitting out one letter at a time: "they do not belong here...Countless presidents, congressmen, and senior officials knew exactly what was happening.
Instead of protecting American citizens, they chose to cover it up."But the site isn't about extraterrestrials or alien encounters, even though President Trump had released more government files about possible extraterrestrial encounters days before."These 'Aliens' are the millions of ILLEGALS...Deport them all," it says.
"THEY WEREN'T LITTLE GREEN MEN.""Aliens" has been a term in American law since the 1700s.One of its earliest appearances was in the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.
The laws gave the president power to arrest, imprison and detain "aliens", or noncitizens, during wartime, and also restricted the freedom of expression for citizens.The laws were passed out of concern that noncitizens would sympathize with the French should the country go to war with the U.S., according to the National Archives.
California struck the term "aliens" from its state code in 2021, calling the language "outdated and derogatory."The wordplay fuses people's desire for hidden knowledge and pop culture with anti-immigrant sentiment, said Ernesto Castañeda, director of Center for Latin American and Latino Studies at American University."Saying ['alien'] instills fear," said Castañeda, who said that by further comparing noncitizens to extraterrestrials is "dehumanizing."A part of the website refers to "aliens" with the pronoun "it": "If you've witnessed an Alien abduction, do not be alarmed," the government website says."We will take care...