Alien (law)

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"Resident alien" redirects here. For the album, see Resident Alien.

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In U.S. law, an alien is a term Americans use for a person (person includes both corporations and humans) who is not a citizen of the United States.^[1] A foreigner is a citizen of the United States not a citizen of the state in question as in a New York corporation is a foreign company inside New Jersey.

Types of "alien" persons (not only in the U.S. context) are:

An alien insurer is company which is a citizen of another country.
An alien who is legally permitted to remain in a country which is foreign to him or her. On specified terms, this kind of alien may be called a legal alien of that country.
An alien who has temporary or permanent residence in a country (which is foreign to him/her) may be called a resident alien of that country.
A visitor with the legal right to visit a country (which is foreign to him/her) may be called a nonresident alien of that country.
The term illegal alien commonly refers to a foreign national who resides in another country unlawfully, either by entering that country at a place other than a designated port-of-entry or as result of the expiration of a non-immigrant visa. The important distinction is that this person intends to remain in the country indefinitely. A tourist who has the present intent to leave would be included as a legal alien described above. Today the preferred term by the politically correct is illegal immigrant because the word alien has become unpopular.
An enemy alien is an alien who is designated as an enemy; compare to enemy combatant.

In Latvian passports, the term alien is used for so-called non-citizens (nepilsoņi): former citizens of USSR who have no citizenship, but have some legal ties with Latvia.