NBC NEWS
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden received widespread praise from Democrats for his fiery State of the Union speech Thursday night, when he leaned in on issues that will likely be central to the 2024 election. But one of the moments that struck a discordant note with some of his allies was on the issue of immigration, when Biden referred to an undocumented immigrant as “an illegal.”
The unscripted moment came when Biden brought up Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was murdered in Georgia. An undocumented immigrant has been charged with her killing. Biden called her “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.”
That term has long been rejected and seen as dehumanizing by the Democratic Party and immigration advocates, so it was noticeable when the president used it in a most high-profile speech.
“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 in the moments after the speech.
