Posted on 03/09/24
| News Source: Politico
President Joe Biden on Saturday said he regretted using the word “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the Venezuelan man charged with killing a Georgia nursing student, who authorities say entered the U.S. illegally.
“I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” Biden said in an interview with MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart.
Biden went off script during his Thursday night address to Congress after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) interrupted him, shouting “Laken Riley,” the name of the 22-year-old Georgia medical student allegedly killed by an undocumented immigrant.
“Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,” Biden said, mispronouncing her first name. “To her parents, I say my heart goes out to you.”
Democrats and immigration advocates have long rejected the word “illegal,” arguing that it’s dehumanizing towards immigrants. There was swift pushback to Biden’s use of the term, particularly since he ordered his immigration agencies in 2021 to no longer use “illegal alien” to describe undocumented immigrants.
“There was a lot of good in President Biden’s speech tonight, but his rhetoric about immigrants was incendiary and wrong,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) posted to X shortly after the address.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) also responded on X: “Let me be clear: No human being is illegal.”
But when asked by a reporter on Friday whether he regretted using the word “illegal,” Biden didn’t express remorse. Biden said that they are “technically not supposed to be here.”
The White House has been trying to cast Biden as tough on immigration as the issue is emerging as a top concern for voters in the 2024 election, yet polls show voters giving Biden low marks on it. But it’s been a difficult balancing act as the Biden team also confronts pushback from immigration advocates who have raised concerns that the president has not made good on his 2020 campaign promise to rebuild a humane immigration system.