{"id":24689,"date":"2024-03-10T03:18:37","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T08:18:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24689"},"modified":"2024-03-10T03:18:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T08:18:48","slug":"incendiary-and-wrong-biden-spurs-anger-for-calling-migrant-an-illegal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=24689","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Incendiary and wrong\u2019: Biden spurs anger for calling migrant \u2018an illegal\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rights advocates have slammed United States President Joe Biden for referring to an undocumented immigrant as \u201can illegal\u201d during his State of the Union address<\/a>, accusing him of echoing the dehumanising rhetoric of his predecessor Donald Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During Thursday\u2019s speech at the US Capitol, Biden was heckled by Republicans over the killing of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old woman who was allegedly murdered by an undocumented immigrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riley\u2019s death has become a rallying cry for conservatives. \u201c[Laken] Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That\u2019s right \u2014 but how many thousands of people are being killed by \u2018legals\u2019? To her parents I say, my heart goes out to you,\u201d Biden said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rights advocates and progressive lawmakers have long condemned the use of the term \u201cillegal\u201d to refer to human beings who do not have immigration status in the US or who cross the border without permits in search of asylum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe remind President Biden that no human being is illegal \u2013\u2013 and dangerous rhetoric inevitably leads to more violence against our community,\u201d\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer at RAICES, an immigrant support and advocacy group in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Members from Biden\u2019s own Democratic Party also condemned the president\u2019s comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet me be clear: No human being is illegal,\u201d Congresswoman Ilhan Omar wrote in a widely shared post on the social media platform X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joaquin Castro, a Democratic congressman from Texas, said that, while Biden\u2019s address had \u201ca lot of good\u201d in it, \u201chis rhetoric about immigrants was incendiary and wrong\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe rhetoric President Biden used tonight was dangerously close to language from Donald Trump that puts a target on the backs of Latinos everywhere,\u201d Castro wrote<\/a> on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDemocrats shouldn\u2019t be taking our cues from MAGA extremism,\u201d he added, referring to Trump\u2019s Make America Great Again movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former Republican president \u2014 and presumed 2024 GOP nominee \u2014 pursued staunch anti-immigration policies<\/a> during his term in the White House, including restrictions on the ability of asylum seekers to seek protection in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump also continues to regularly use anti-immigrant rhetoric as he campaigns for a second term in the White House. He is widely expected to once again face off against Biden in November\u2019s general election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a video posted on his Truth Social platform before\u00a0the State of the Union<\/a>, Trump attacked migrants and asylum seekers seeking protection in the US as \u201cillegal alien criminals\u201d and promised to oversee \u201cthe largest domestic deportation operation in American history\u201d if he is re-elected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year saw new records for irregular border crossings into the US. In the 2023 fiscal year, for example, US Customs and Border Protection documented 1,475,669 \u201cencounters\u201d with migrants and asylum seekers arriving irregularly across the southern border with Mexico. In December alone, there were 301,983 \u201cencounters\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That, in turn, has increased political pressure on the Biden administration to act, with Republicans and some Democrats criticising the president for failing to lower the numbers. Observers have said Trump and his allies are trying to make the situation into a winning election issue for the Republican Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against that backdrop, Biden himself<\/a> has pushed for Congress to pass a spending bill that would tighten border security and create new restrictions on asylum claims. Democrats have accused Republicans of stalling the legislation in a bid to help Trump with his re-election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During his State of the Union speech on Thursday night, Biden said the bill would allow Washington to hire more border officers and grant him the authority \u201cto temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy Republican friends, you owe it to the American people to get this bill done. We need to act,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can fight about the border, or we can fix it. I\u2019m ready to fix it. Send me the border bill now!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al-Juburi at RAICES, the immigrant rights group in Texas, said in a statement that Biden \u201cembraced the toughest set of border security reforms we\u2019ve ever seen in this country, formally adopting a more radical anti-immigrant position\u201d in his speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe succumbed to the pressures of a political climate that is increasingly hostile towards immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking people and families.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The National Immigration Law Center also said Biden \u201cmissed an opportunity to distinguish himself\u201d from Trump on immigration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInstead, he doubled down on the Senate\u2019s failed border bill & parroted dehumanizing Republican rhetoric about immigrants,\u201d the group said on social media, referring to the State of the Union. \u201cWe urge the President to do better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

aljazeera<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rights advocates have slammed United States President Joe Biden for referring to an undocumented immigrant as \u201can illegal\u201d during his State of the Union address, accusing him of echoing the dehumanising rhetoric of his predecessor Donald Trump. During Thursday\u2019s speech at the US Capitol, Biden was heckled by Republicans over the killing of Laken Riley, a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":24690,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1169,1545,1214,27106,5577],"class_list":["post-24689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-biden","tag-illegal","tag-immigration","tag-inflammatory","tag-wrong"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24691,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24689\/revisions\/24691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}