Whatâs in a word, one may ask. It appears a lot.
When President Joe Biden spoke Thursday during his State of the Union address, he said Laken Riley was âkilled by an illegal,â Mediaite reported.
However, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Biden should have referred to the suspect as âundocumentedâ instead.
âNow he should have said undocumented, but thatâs not a big thing, OK? Whatâs the big thing?â Pelosi said in response to a question posed by CNN anchor Dana Bash.
Bash had started to ask, âMadam speaker, one of the clearly ad-libbed moments was during the section about Immigration,â Mediaite reported.
She then played a clip of Biden, who referred to Riley as âan innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.â
But before Bash could ask her question, Pelosi interrupted with her take on Biden saying âillegal â instead of âundocumented.â
But that wasnât what Bash was going to ask.
âI actually wasnât even gonna ask about that,â said Bash. âI was just gonna ask more about the moment. But you do think that he should have said undocumented? That wasnât going to be my question.â
Pelosi responded, âWell, we usually say âundocumented.â He said âillegal.â I donât think itâs a big deal. I donât think itâs a big deal because I think his focus was on the sympathy for the family. Itâs a terrible tragedy.â
Pelosiâs response came after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) spoke out during the address while Biden was talking, ABC News reported.
Riley, a22-year-old nursing student, was murdered in February while running on the campus of the University of Georgia. The suspect is a migrant from Venezuela whom officials say was in the U.S. illegally, per ABC News.
âLaken Riley,â Biden said, appearing to mispronounce her name as Lincoln, âan innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal.â
Buttons with the words âSay her name, Laken Rileyâ were distributed before the SOTU.
The GOP feels Biden has avoided the Murder and saying Rileyâs name âso as not to highlight the crime and the suspect,â per ABC.
âTo her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you having lost children myself. I understand,â he said.
The House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act. This would ârequire detention of any unauthorized migrant who commits burglary or theft,â per the outlet.
Jose Antonio Ibarra, the suspect in Rileyâs Murder, unlawfully entered the U.S. near El Paso, Texas, in September 2022.
He and was paroled and released for further processing, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
