Advocacy groups have criticized US President Joe Biden for calling undocumented immigrants “illegal immigrants” in his State of the Union address, accusing him of repeating dehumanizing comments from his predecessor Donald Trump. .
Biden was heckled by Republicans during a speech at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday over the killing of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old woman allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant.
Riley's death became a rallying cry for conservatives. “[Laken] Riley, an innocent young woman killed by an illegal immigrant. That's true, but how many thousands of people are being killed by “legal” people? I would like to express my deepest sympathies to her parents. ” Mr. Biden said:.
Rights activists and progressive lawmakers have long criticized the use of the term “illegal” to refer to people who do not have immigration status in the United States or who cross the border without authorization to seek asylum.
“We remind President Biden that no human being is illegal. Dangerous rhetoric inevitably It will lead to further violence against our community.”
Let me be clear: no one is illegal.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 8, 2024
Biden's own Democratic lawmakers also condemned the president's comments.
“Let me be clear: Humans are not illegal,” Rep. Ilhan Omar wrote in a widely shared post on social media platform X.
Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro of Texas said Biden's speech contained “a lot of good points” but that “his comments about immigration were inflammatory and wrong.”
“The rhetoric used by President Biden tonight was dangerously close to the language of Donald Trump, who targeted the backs of Latinos around the world,” Castro said. I have written on social media.
“Democrats shouldn't take their cues from MAGA extremism,” he added, referring to President Trump's “Make America Great Again” movement.
The former Republican president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee promoted staunch anti-immigrant policies during his time in the White House, including limiting the ability of asylum seekers to seek protection in the United States.
President Trump has also continued to regularly use anti-immigrant rhetoric as he campaigns for a second term in the White House. He is widely expected to face Biden again in the November general election.
In a video posted to his platform TruthSocial before the State of the Union address, President Trump attacked immigrants and asylum seekers seeking protection in the United States as “illegal alien criminals” and warned that if If he were, he promised to oversee “the largest domestic deportation operation in U.S. history.” he was re-elected.
We should not let Republican extremists get the better of us with cruel and inhumane enforcement policies that fail to keep our communities safe. That's why I oppose the provisions of the Senate border agreement. Rather than capitulate to Republican demands, we must…
— Congresswoman Delia Ramirez (@repdeliaramirez) March 8, 2024
Last year saw a new record for illegal border crossings into the United States. For example, in fiscal year 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded 1,475,669 “encounters” with migrants and asylum seekers arriving irregularly across the southern border with Mexico. There were 301,983 “encounters” in December alone.
That has increased political pressure on the Biden administration to act, with Republicans and some Democrats criticizing the president for not lowering the numbers. Officials said President Trump and his allies are trying to turn the situation into an issue of Republican electoral victory.
Against this backdrop, Mr. Biden himself is pushing Congress to pass a spending bill that would strengthen border security and impose new limits on asylum claims. Democrats have accused Republicans of delaying the bill to aid Trump's re-election campaign.
Biden said in his State of the Union address Thursday night that the bill would give Washington more border patrol agents and the power to “temporarily close the border in the event of an overwhelming number of migrants at the border.” Stated.
“Republicans, we owe it to the American people to pass this bill. We need to act,” he said. “We can fight for our borders, and we can fix them. We're ready to fix them. Send us a border bill now!”
Al-Jubouri of RAICES, a Texas immigrant rights group, said in a statement that Biden “embraced the toughest border security reforms this country has ever seen and formally adopted a more extreme anti-immigrant position” in his speech. I did,” he said. .
“He succumbed to the pressures of a political climate increasingly hostile to immigrants, refugees, asylum-seekers and families.”
tonight's #SOTU, @POTUS He missed an opportunity to differentiate himself from his predecessor on immigration issues.
Instead, he doubled down on the border bill that failed in the Senate and parroted dehumanizing Republican rhetoric on immigration.
We urge the president to do better.
— National Immigration Law Center (@NILC) March 8, 2024
The National Immigration Law Center also said that Biden “missed an opportunity to differentiate” from Trump on immigration issues.
“Instead, he doubled down on the border bill that failed in the Senate and parroted dehumanizing Republican rhetoric on immigration,” the group said on social media, referring to the State of the Union. “We urge the president to do better.”