Joe Biden’s seemingly off-the-cuff use of “illegal” to describe people who are undocumented during his State of the Union address drew disappointed reaction from experts who have long argued the term is inaccurate and outdated.
Responding to heckling from the conservative congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who demanded Biden mention the name of Laken Riley – a Georgia nursing student who was allegedly killed by a person who is undocumented – Biden held up a button of Riley’s face and said she was an “innocent, young woman who was killed by an illegal”.
He added: “But how many thousands of people being killed by legals? To the parents, I say, my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself. I understand.”
Democrats and immigrant rights organizations said Biden’s use of “illegal” was dehumanizing. The Illinois congresswoman Delia Ramirez said she was “disappointed” in Biden’s use of what she called “dehumanizing rightwing rhetoric” to describe immigrants. “No human being is illegal,” Ramirez said. Another Illinois representative, Chuy García, added: “As a proud immigrant, I’m extremely disappointed to hear President Biden use the world “illegal”.
The National Immigrant Justice Center called the term “words [from] anti-immigrant extremists”, adding: “Manipulating a personal tragedy for political gain in this way is dangerous. Conflating immigration status with criminality is racist and dehumanizing.”
Immigration advocates have long argued that the term “illegals” is an inaccurate term, as entering the US without documents is not a criminal offense. It is also a racially charged term that can promote violence and discrimination, according to the Drop the I-Word campaign, which advocates for media organizations not to use it when describing immigrants.
The Biden administration itself ordered US immigration enforcement agencies to stop using the terms “illegal alien” and “assimilation” in 2021, guidelines meant to encourage more inclusive language.
“We enforce our nation’s laws while also maintaining the dignity of every individual with whom we interact. The words we use matter and will serve to further confer that dignity to those in our custody,” said Troy Miller, a senior official at Customs and Border Protection, in the 2021 memo.
On Friday, addressing reporters after the speech Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director, did not directly comment on the term but instead pointed to Trump’s previous comments on immigrants and extremist policies.
“I know it may have been difficult to hear over the incessant heckling of Marjorie Taylor Greene last night, but we should be very clear about what the president was saying when it comes to fixing our broken system and to rejecting the cruelty in the hateful extremism that’s being pushed by people like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who were actually just trying to demonize immigrants in an attempt to score political points.
“We are running this campaign against a man who was promising to rip kids away from their mothers again, who’s promising to erect mass deportation camps, who is promising to end birthright citizenship and is using hate as one of its chief political currencies,” Tyler added.
Biden’s remarks come after a bipartisan bill to introduce stricter immigration measures was rejected by Republicans. The president has reportedly said he is considering unilateral action that would sharply restrict the ability of people to claim asylum at the US-Mexico border.
Progressive lawmakers said such a move would compare to the hardline strategy of Donald Trump when he was president, but Biden defended his handling of the migrant crisis in the State of the Union address, criticizing Trump’s actions.
“Unlike my predecessor, on my first day in office I introduced a comprehensive plan to fix our immigration system, secure the border, and provide a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and so much more,” he said.
In his speech he pushed Republicans to back the border bill they themselves had helped negotiate. “Conservatives got together and said [it] was a good bill,” he said, speaking directly to Republicans present for the speech. “That bipartisan bill would hire 1,500 more security agents and officers, 100 more immigration judges to help tackle the backload of 2 million cases. 4,300 more asylum officers and new policy so they can resolve cases in six months instead of six years.
“What are you against?”
The Republican senator James Lankford seemed to agree with Biden’s characterization of the bill, mouthing “that’s true” and nodding.
• This article was amended on 8 March 2024. An earlier version mistakenly quoted Joe Biden as saying “illegals” rather than “legals” in the following quote: “But how many thousands of people being killed by legals?” This has been corrected.
