The idea that migration is something only foreigners do is embedded in political language. British citizens resident in other European Union countries are commonly referred to as “expatriates”, although they migrated to acquire that status. The special label marks them out as people, with rights to be respected, whereas migration is an abstract noun without a human face. A problem the government must soon confront is that the politics of controlling the foreigner count in the abstract has a concrete impact on real-life migrants. A group of Conservative MPs is threatening to rebel over the article 50 trigger bill next week, unless guarantees are offered over the status of 3.3 million EU citizens in the UK. Grandees from opposition parties are also mobilising. The government is keen to avoid any delay to the bill so any disruption gives the rebels leverage. Their cause is also just.

The uncertainty hanging over EU citizens who have put down roots in the UK is a needless trauma. An act of generosity after the referendum would have settled anxiety, signalled diplomatic goodwill towards European neighbours and rebuked the aggressive minority who treated the Brexit vote as if it heralded a purge of foreigners. Instead, the government treated EU citizens’ rights as a bargaining chip for future negotiations. Unsurprisingly, other states took the same line with regard to the rights of British citizens under their jurisdiction. Theresa May now says she wants this matter resolved and that a deal on reciprocal rights is close at hand. The 300,000 Brits in Spain look to be beneficiaries of an early agreement. But the whole mess was avoidable with a bit of foresight and compassion.

It has taken months for stories of families living in limbo, their security lost in a Kafkaesque Home Office labyrinth, to percolate through the media and MPs’ constituency surgeries and force Downing Street to grasp the problem. The Guardian has highlighted many of the absurdities that people face. Meanwhile, businesses and public service managers want reassurances that staff will be allowed to continue in their jobs after Brexit. It is not in the interests of the UK to have its own citizens overseas suddenly deprived of their rights either. So a deal will be done. But Mrs May has acquired a new incentive to change her tone on migration more generally. Her haste in seeking diplomatic intimacy with the new White House regime, in combination with her hostility to free movement, has given EU leaders the impression that Britain is fellow-travelling with Donald Trump. That is not a good look, and the prime minister travelled to Malta for an EU summit today eager to shed it. The meeting considered migration across the Mediterranean and Mrs May tried to be constructive in discussing measures to bolster the African side of Europe’s maritime border.

But, inevitably, the US president was on the agenda. The prime minister wanted to reassure her continental counterparts that Brexit is not a wrecking project akin to Trumpism. The Maltese summit offered an uncomfortable combination for Mrs May. EU leaders are concerned about migration from outside their borders, while Britain wants to erect a new border inside Europe. Meanwhile, the US is unilaterally shredding international protocols for handling these matters. Mr Trump sees no distinction between asylum and labour migration. Both can be equally “dumb” and “illegal” in his eyes. This misuse of language is not a small part of the problem. It is a method by which racism corrupts the rational formulation of policy. It is rhetoric that leads a society to deny the humanity of people on the move – whether in search of a better job or fleeing terror.

Britain has already blundered too far down that road. The US is showing where it leads. Mrs May must demonstrate that, alongside her determination to control Britain’s borders, she grasps that migration is more than a numbers game. Giving comfort to the millions of EU citizens currently living in the UK is an easy place to start.