The White House has clarified that President Joe Biden does not apologize for his use of the term “illegal” during his recent State of the Union address.
Biden recently stated during an interview on MSNBC that he regrets using the word “illegal” to describe the alleged killer of University of Georgia student Laken Riley, 26-year-old Jose Antonio Ibarra, an unlawful migrant from Venezuela.
“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s ‘undocumented,’” the president corrected during the interview.
“Look, they built the country. The reason our economy is growing. We have to control the border and more orderly flow, but I don’t share [Trump’s] view at all.”
When asked whether he regrets using the word, Biden responded by stating, “Yes.”
White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton has since clarified the comments made by the president, saying that Biden is not apologetic for using the word.
“I want to be really clear about something: the president absolutely did not apologize. There was no apology anywhere in that conversation,” she said, per ABC News.
“He did not apologize. He used a different word.”
The deputy press secretary claimed that Biden used the term because he was speaking “passionately about knowing what it means to lose a child and extended his deep grief and condolences to Laken Riley’s family in front of the entire country.”
“I think it’s unconscionable that there are some people who are playing politics with this young woman’s tragic murder,” she said, per ABC News.
Biden used the term “illegal” in a fiery exchange with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) during the State of the Union address.
Greene told Biden during his speech to say Riley’s name, to which he responded by saying that Riley was “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,” while also seemingly calling her “Lincoln Riley,” as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The president’s use of the word “illegal” led to criticism from those within his own party, with multiple Democratic leaders saying that they were disappointed in the verbiage.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was critical of the president, posting on social media, “No human is illegal.”
“We have to be very intentional in the language we use to describe human beings. Careless & inflammatory language only creates fear & animosity of vulnerable groups and aligns with MAGA extremist playbooks. We can do better by centering our shared humanity,” added the congressman.
