As we've been covering, President Joe Biden finally referenced Laken Riley's name, sort of, during Thursday's State of the Union address. He referred to her as "Lincoln Riley," acknowledging she was "an innocent young woman who was killed, by an illegal, that's right!" The accused killer, Jose Antonio Ibarra, is here illegally from Venezuela. The official White House transcript indicates that Riley wasn't mentioned in the prepared remarks. We can thus thank Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for Biden acknowledging that Riley "was killed by an illegal." Yet Democratic members and other liberals went nuts that the president would dare to use that term.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was among them. During her appearance on CNN right after the speech, she insisted Biden "should have said undocumented," adding, "We usually say undocumented." Her response came as Dana Bash pointed out she wasn't even asking what Pelosi thought about the term the president used.
There were those even more enthusiastically outraged at Biden, including and especially over social media. Many of them are members of Congress or state legislatures.
As a proud immigrant, I'm extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the word "illegal."
— Congressman Chuy García (@RepChuyGarcia) March 8, 2024
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), referring to President Biden’s use of term “illegal,” says “Biden’s remark about immigrants was ugly and uncalled for. He’s piling on to Trump’s dangerous rhetoric.”
— Laura Barrón-López (@lbarronlopez) March 8, 2024
A number of CHC members have expressed this frustration with this part of speech
In using tropes like "no human being is illegal," and making that the focus of their reaction, such Democrats put on display what their real priority is here.
Disappointed that @POTUS would use such dehumanizing right wing rhetoric to speak about immigrants tonight. No human being is illegal. #SOTU
— Delia Ramirez (@DeliaRamirezIL) March 8, 2024
Reminder: No human being is illegal.
— Rep. Analise Ortiz (@RepAnaliseOrtiz) March 8, 2024
No human being is illegal. We must create a pathway to citizenship for dreamers. Americans support Dreamers. Dreamers support America. #DACA #SOTU2024 @UNITEDWEDREAM @FWDus
— Rep. Sylvia Garcia (@RepSylviaGarcia) March 8, 2024
Likely not helpful to the president is that the far-left Squad members are also among those complaining so loudly from their X accounts.
Let me be clear: No human being is illegal.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 8, 2024
No human being is illegal. https://t.co/qU0XeB0BtA
— Congresswoman Cori Bush (@RepCori) March 8, 2024
It's not just Democratic members, but also immigration activists.
Such posts not only group immigrants together, but in doing so lose sight of what the narrative is here, which is the outrage over how the person being charged for Riley's brutal murder had no business being in this country and should have already been deported.
With all due respect, @MSNBC pundits, calling immigrants “illegals” is not just “something people on the left will care about”. It’s something that immigrants care about. We have worked hard to stop people from calling us that because it’s demonizing and dehumanizing. Period.
— Erika Andiola (@ErikaAndiola) March 8, 2024
It's definitely quite the narrative, when immigration is oftentimes a top issue and/or the worst issue in the polls for Biden, for Democrats to harp on the term an accused killer is called. Many of these people haven't spoken up about Riley's death.
On Thursday, the House passed the Laken Riley Act by a vote of 251-170. Only 37 Democrats voted in favor of the bill. The members, whose outrage is mentioned above over the term "illegal," are not among them, as Reps. Chuy García (IL), Joaquin Castro (TX), Delia Ramirez (IL), Sylvia Garcia (TX), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Cori Bush (MO) all voted no.
The bill "would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to issue detainers and take custody of illegal aliens who commit theft-related crimes," Madeline explained in her coverage. As Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who sponsored the legislation, has reminded about the bill, it "directly addresses one of the federal policy issues related to Laken Riley's murder. As is widely reported, Jose Ibarra was cited for shoplifting by the Athens Police Department prior to killing Ms. Riley. If local law enforcement had called ICE, and ICE issued a detainer and picked him up, Laken Riley would be alive."
During the State of the Union, Senate Republicans were providing fact-checks in real-time, including on "Biden's Border Crisis," with some eye-opening numbers on this border crisis that's taken place during his administration.
Biden took 94 executive actions on the border during his first 100 days in office, many of which Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA)'s office has highlighted, though the president now tries to gaslight the American people that he wants to fix such a problem and that he needs legislation to have the authority to do it. It's why he's been pushing the disastrous border provisions that Republicans killed last month.
The Laken Riley Act would also call for some of the policies that Biden ended to be reinstated, such as Remain in Mexico.
It's no wonder we're hearing more about violent crimes, given that there's been a 57 percent decrease in arrests of criminal aliens and a 67 percent decrease in deportations of such people. Border Patrol has also apprehended 336 individuals on the terror watch list so far, while it was 14 people under the entire Trump administration.
But Democrats are meanwhile focused on Biden going off script to use a word they find offensive.
There's been hopes, and demands even, that Biden will apologize. Considering the pandering that Biden has desperately tried to do when it comes to the far-left's lack of support of Israel, as well as how the Biden administration dropped using the term "illegal alien," and his overall disastrous handling of the border, it's quite possible that he will.
Very disappointing to hear Biden use the hateful right wing slur “illegal” tonight.
— Kai Newkirk (@kai_newkirk) March 8, 2024
And just before pledging never to demonize immigrants.
Maybe he was thrown off by the interruption.
Regardless he should apologize and disavow the term.
No human being is illegal. Ever.
I hope the administration releases a statement tomorrow apologizing for Biden calling the immigrant community the “I” word tonight at #SOTU. This isn’t about being politically correct. This is about changing the narrative. You want the dehumanization to stop. That’s a good start.
— Erika Andiola (@ErikaAndiola) March 8, 2024
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