OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington is now the fourth state in the nation to remove use of the word ‘alien’ from its laws when referring to individuals who are not citizens of the United States. Governor Bob Ferguson signed House Bill 2632 into law on March 11.
The term will be replaced with ‘noncitizen’ or “other context-appropriate language, except when federal law requires otherwise,” according to a press release from the Clark County Volunteer Lawyers Program.
Oregon and California are the only other states to discontinue the use of ‘alien’ across all statutes and documents. Colorado also has a similar law targeting the term ‘illegal alien.’
“As a refugee to this country, I know what it feels like to be labeled as ‘other’,” Representative My-Linh Thai, the bill’s chief sponsor, said. “The term ‘alien’ is outdated, dehumanizing, and does not reflect how we speak about people today.”
The law will take effect on June 11, 2026.
Supporters of the bill argue that updating the language to ‘noncitizen’ reduces potential for confusion.
“The term ‘alien’ does not refer to any specific immigration status,” Undocumented Communities Committee Co-Chair Elizabeth Fitzgerald said. “When it carries legal meaning, it is always accompanied by a modifier, ‘alien offender,’ ‘legal resident alien,’ ‘nonimmigrant alien.’ This bill replaces a word that is, at best, an ambiguous synonym requiring constant context and, at worst, dehumanizing to Washingtonians without U.S. citizenship with its plain, objective equivalent: noncitizen.”