Mother Jones illustration; Shawn Thew/EFE/ZUMA
President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address last night was, in many respects, better than expected. But one moment, when the president went off-script, will be hard to shake off.
During the section on immigration, Biden fumbled when mentioning the death of 22-year-old Laken Riley. A nursing student at the University of Georgia, Riley was killed in February. A man from Venezuela who US officials say entered the United States unlawfully was, soon after, charged with kidnapping and murder. Since then, Republicans have elevated the tragedy to accuse the Biden administration of allowing an “invasion” at the border.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), wearing a MAGA hat, interrupted Biden during the speech and shouted at him to say Riley’s name. In response, Biden held up a pin that Greene had handed him earlier and said: “Laken Riley, an innocent woman who was killed by an ‘illegal.’”
Biden’s slip seemed Freudian in light of the president’s significant shift on immigration and departure from his “moral leadership” agenda. Three years ago, his administration ordered immigration officials to stop employing the term “illegal aliens” in official communications and press releases. Now, he is pushing border proposals that some advocates call “unconscionable.” Biden is moving right on immigration. And now, even if by accident, his language is matching it.
As my colleague Daniel King wrote, “‘Alien’ was baked into this country’s founding vocabulary to strip British of personhood and legal rights.” Biden’s impromptu flub echoed the direction of his policies—making immigrants, as a collective, seem lesser, somehow stripped of peoplehood.
“The rhetoric President Biden used tonight was dangerously close to language from Donald Trump that puts a target on the backs of Latinos everywhere,” Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas said on social media. “Democrats shouldn’t be taking our cues from MAGA extremism.” The National Immigrant Justice Center’s X account posted that “blaming an entire group of people for the alleged acts of one person is xenophobia which must not be tolerated in part of the US government.”
Naturally, Biden’s “an illegal” moment played right into Greene’s hands. The congresswoman took credit for making Biden “go off script” and telling the “truth” by admitting “Laken Riley was murdered by an ILLEGAL!!!”
They are melting down because I forced Biden to go off script and he finally told the truth and admitted Laken Riley was murdered by an ILLEGAL!!!
Yes that’s right Joe.
ILLEGAL ALIEN!!!! https://t.co/auwxadMcD1 pic.twitter.com/TNH9aHcHJr
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) March 8, 2024
After the ruckus, Biden went back to the prepared remarks. He declared he wouldn’t “demonize immigrants saying they ‘poison the blood of our country,'” referring to a Trump quote. He promised not to separate families or “ban people from America because of their faith.” He gave a nod to his Irish ancestry and talked about migrations who fled persecution to pursue the American Dream. “That’s America,” Biden said, “where we all come from somewhere, but we are all Americans.”
Immigration and the border have been front and center this campaign cycle. Biden also took the opportunity to rail against Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers for tanking a bipartisan senate border deal so restrictive it would have previously been unthinkable for Democrats to stand behind it. Biden touted the bill as the “toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen,” saying it would save lives and restore order at the border. (Republican Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), who led the border deal negotiations, seemed to approve.)
“If my predecessor is watching instead of playing politics and pressuring members of Congress to block this bill, join me in telling Congress to pass it!” the president said. “We can do it together.”
For me, a non-American who came from somewhere, a question lingered. Which Biden from the State of the Union represents his true thoughts: The scripted version, who lauds immigration as a strength worth being celebrated? Or the extemporaneous one—who uses language that enables openly anti-immigrant policies?
