(Headline USA) Several Democrats lashed out at President Joe Biden after he used the phrase “illegal immigrant” during his State of the Union address on Thursday night, the HuffPost reported.
Biden made the comment after being forced by congressional Republicans—including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.—to mention Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student who was brutally murdered in February by an illegal alien with ties to a Venezuelan crime syndicate who had fled south after being arrested in New York and managing to avoid a detainer from Immigration and Customs Services due to its “sanctuary city” status.
“An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,” he said of Riley. “That’s right, but how many of the thousands of people being killed by legals—to her parents?”
Although the Biden administration’s open-border policies bear the brunt of the blame for a rash of shocking crimes linked to “newcomers,” as Biden previously referred to them, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other radical leftists managed to take anti-American posturing to the next level of insanity, helping the embattled Biden to appear rational by comparison.
Pelosi was asked about Biden’s immigration about-face during a post-address CNN interview, and she admitted his wording wasn’t ideal.
“Well, we usually say ‘undocumented,’” she began.
“He said ‘illegal.’ I don’t think it’s a big deal,” Pelosi continued. “I don’t think it’s a big deal, because I think his focus was on the sympathy for the family. It’s a terrible tragedy.”
Others on the Left, however, made clear just how much they disapproved of Biden’s comment.
“As a proud immigrant, I’m extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the word ‘illegal,’” tweeted Rep. Chuy García, D-Ill.
As a proud immigrant, I'm extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the word "illegal."
— Congressman Chuy García (@RepChuyGarcia) March 8, 2024
“Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., agreed: “Let me be clear,” she said. “No human being is illegal.”
Let me be clear: No human being is illegal.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 8, 2024
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., called Biden’s comments “dehumanizing” and accused him of using “right wing rhetoric to speak about immigrants … No human being is illegal.”
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
Even Biden’s campaign co-chair, Mitch Landrieu, admitted on Friday that Biden should not have used the word “illegal” to describe Riley’s killer.
“He probably should have used a different word, and I think he would know that,” Landrieu said on CNN Friday morning.
“But what you should notice about that is not that he made a small mistake,” added the former New Orleans mayor. “The big thing that he did right—and this is what this president always does—is express empathy to people.”
Some Twitter users, however, noted that the reaction to Biden’s word choice itself was a reflection of how much control the fringe now has over the party at large—something that has been evident throughout Biden’s administration as his handlers are forced to reconcile his own history of often inappropriate—and even racist legislative actions and rhetoric—with their progressive and politically correct agenda.
A resurfaced video of current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer showed him speaking in robust defense of the word “illegal” and suggesting that efforts to sugar-coat the immigration issue were tantamount to sanctioning it.
“When we use phrases like ‘undocumented workers,’ we convey a message to the American people that their government is not serious about combatting illegal immigration, which the American people overwhelmingly oppose,” Schumer said in 2009.
” … If you don’t think it’s illegal, you’re not going to say it,” he added. “I think it is illegal and wrong, and we have to change it.”
Chuck Schumer 2009: "When we use phrases like undocumented workers, we convey a message to the American people that their government is not serious about combatting illegal immigration, which the American people overwhelmingly oppose."
Nancy Pelosi 2024: "He should have said… pic.twitter.com/LmTKa5TXs0
— Global Conflict Video (@GlobalConflictV) March 8, 2024
