Was Biden’s ‘illegal’ remark a mistake or a signal?
Off-script or on message? During last week’s State of the Union speech, President Biden used the word “illegal” to describe Jose Ibarra, the undocumented Venezuelan immigrant who has been charged with the murder of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student in Georgia, whose first name Biden unfortunately got wrong.
Biden’s deployment of the term “illegal,” which drew mainstream media attention, was described afterward as an unscripted, off-the-cuff remark, for which the president eventually apologized. In the heat of that moment, which came during an exchange with the MAGA hat-wearing Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, maybe “illegal” just slipped out of Biden’s mouth. But given all the preparation that goes into such a speech, not to mention how politically incorrect such language is with the progressive wing of his party, that’s a little hard to believe.
After Biden said it, he went back to prepared remarks in which he stated, “I will not demonize immigrants saying they are poison in the blood of our country. Unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans, and we’re the only nation in the world with the heart and soul that draws from old and new.”
You could say that Biden was trying to have it both ways, by tossing out a little red meat to the rabid anti-immigration crowd while playing to the country’s better angels. Or you could say that he was aiming, somewhat awkwardly, for the middle ground that a lot of Americans may be searching for right now. That includes those who prefer the term “undocumented” to “illegal,” along with those who still want to believe in America as a refuge for the “huddled masses,” even if they are less than thrilled to find them huddling in their own cities and towns.
According to the latest Gallup poll, Americans now rank immigration as the most important problem facing the United States. That ranking breaks down along party lines, with 57 percent of Republicans, 22 percent of independents, and 10 percent of Democrats saying it’s their top concern. Yet even in blue states like Massachusetts, the burden of dealing with the large numbers of migrants who are coming here is prompting soul-searching and major controversies in communities that are called upon to host them. In Dedham, officials rejected a proposal to expand the use of a kitchen preparing meals for migrants housed in a former hotel in that town.
More than 40 years ago, Massachusetts proudly embraced a law that guaranteed shelter to homeless families. Today, while the “right-to-shelter” law still technically stands, the House passed a proposal to limit time in shelters, and a Boston Globe editorial endorsed the concept of capping shelter time because the cost has become “unsustainable.” When it gets to that point, immigration can no longer be written off as a purely Republican or red state issue, and that explains why Biden is struggling to finesse it.
To be sure, the exploitation of Laken Riley’s death follows a familiar Republican playbook. Whipped up by Donald Trump, it takes a crime committed by one person of color and uses it to stoke racial fears and hatred, this time while blaming Biden as an accomplice because of his border policies. The template goes back to the 1988 presidential election, when George H.W. Bush, the vice president and Republican presidential nominee, used the case of Willie Horton, a Black man who committed violent crimes when he was out on furlough from a Massachusetts prison, as a wedge issue against Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. The prison furlough policy predated Dukakis, but in that presidential contest, he owned it, and never disowned it, to his political detriment.
When it comes to immigration policy reform, Republican lawmakers have also proven themselves to be totally corrupt brokers. As Biden pointed out in his State of the Union address, they killed a bipartisan Senate border deal that called for immigration restrictions Republicans have long advocated for because Trump didn’t want Biden to be able to declare any victory on the issue. It’s just the latest installment in an immigration reform stalemate that has been going on for years and has now reached a crisis level on Biden’s watch.
But with Republican lawmakers refusing to take any action on immigration, Democrats like Governor Maura Healey are left struggling with the costs of providing food and shelter for migrants who come to Massachusetts without proper documentation — in other words, illegally — and because of that cannot find legal employment; with no employment they need government help. It’s a vicious cycle for which there seems to be no solution, one that leads to lumping together undocumented migrants in need of assistance and one migrant who allegedly commited a crime.
After using the word “illegal,” Biden did not initially take it back. Instead, he noted that the immigrant charged in the murder in Georgia was “technically not supposed to be here.” Then, after the predictable blowback from progressive Democrats, he said in an interview on MSNBC, “I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal’; it’s ‘undocumented.’ ”
Want to bet Biden is not really sorry he called Laken’s alleged killer “an illegal” — but is very sorry he bungled the name of the “innocent young woman” who, for Republicans, is the tragic face of the immigration crisis in 2024?