Democrats are furious that President Joe Biden used the word “unlawful” during his State of the Union address to describe the man accused of killing Laken Riley in Athens, Georgia, in February.
Riley, 22, a nursing student at Augusta University, went for a morning jog around the University of Georgia (UGA) campus on February 22nd. When she did not return for several hours, her roommate called the police, who began a search. .
Later that day, Riley’s body was found mangled in a wooded area near Herrick Lake. On February 23, police arrested Jose Antonio Ibarra, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela who had previous arrests in Athens and New York City. He was released into the United States after arriving at the southern border in September 2022.
In her fourth SOTU speech, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) loudly called on Biden to acknowledge Riley’s murder. Biden did so, but mispronounced his name as “Lincoln Riley.”
“An innocent young woman was killed by an illegal alien. That’s right,” Biden said.
In response, Democrats and open border activists criticized Biden for using the word “illegal” to describe Ybarra. For example, Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) wrote that he was “very disappointed” that Mr. Biden called Mr. Ybarra an “illegal.”
As a proud immigrant, I am deeply disappointed to hear President Biden use the word “illegal.”
— Rep. Chuy Garcia (@RepChuyGarcia) March 8, 2024
On CNN, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was quick to suggest that Biden should have used the word “undocumented” to describe Ybarra instead of “illegal.”
Similarly, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) quietly attacked Biden by calling Ybarra an “illegal,” writing on Twitter that “no one is illegal.”
Nancy Pelosi just criticized Biden for using the word “illegal” instead of “illegal alien” to describe Laken Riley’s killer.
you can’t make this up pic.twitter.com/6DGzEc7VZw
— Johnny Maga (@_johnnymaga) March 8, 2024
Let me be clear: no one is illegal.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) March 8, 2024
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas), who is often seen as a spokesman for the open borders lobby within the Democratic Party, said that Biden’s description of Ybarra as “illegal” was “inflammatory and wrong.” “There is,” he said.
There was a lot of good in President Biden’s speech tonight, but his rhetoric on immigration was inflammatory and wrong. 1/
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) March 8, 2024
The rhetoric President Biden used tonight was dangerously close to the words of Donald Trump, who targeted the backs of Latinos around the world.
Democrats shouldn’t take their cues from MAGA extremism. 3/
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) March 8, 2024
Marisa Limón Garza, with the group “Las Americas” Said politiko Biden said calling Ybarra “illegal” is a “pathetic” and “racist metaphor.”
“At best, it’s like when my father, who is in his 70s, makes an unintentional gaffe or something mean,” Garza said. “At worst, it’s a tired and racist trope. Either way, he needs to be better.”
Yaleris Méndez Zamora of the Florida Immigration Coalition echoed Omar’s reaction, writing in a statement: “Humans are not illegal!”
Despite Biden’s use of the term “illegal” in Thursday’s SOTU speech, the Biden administration announced that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has changed the terms “alien,” “illegal alien,” and “illegal immigrant.” Efforts have been made to ban its use.
Instead, DHS officials were ordered to use the terms “noncitizen” and “undocumented noncitizen” when describing illegal aliens. Just recently, the White House described newly arrived border crossers as “new arrivals.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Please email jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
