President Joe Biden responded to heckling from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., demanding he say the name of murdered Georgia college student Laken Riley by offering his condolences to her parents in an unscripted moment during Thursday’s State of the Union address—as the immigration debate has become a key issue in the 2024 presidential election.
US President Joe Biden holds a "Say her name Laken Riley" button while delivering the State of the ... [+]
Biden reached under the dais and retrieved a pin commemorating Riley in response to Greene, who yelled “say her name” and “what about Laken Riley?” as Biden criticized Republicans for blocking bipartisan border security legislation.
Biden said Riley was “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal” after Greene interrupted him, adding “to her parents I say, my heart goes out to you.”
An undocumented migrant from Venezuela, Jose Ibarra, has been charged with murdering Riley, a 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student, while she was on a run at the nearby University of Georgia campus last month.
The killing has become a rallying cry for Republicans in claiming Biden has failed to secure the southern border.
“Lincoln Riley” trended on X, formerly known as Twitter, after numerous right-wing accounts suggested Biden gaffed on the pronunciation of Laken Riley’s name during the exchange. Lincoln Riley is the head football coach at the University of Southern California.
Biden criticized former President Donald Trump, without mentioning him by name, during his annual speech for encouraging Republicans in Congress to block the Senate’s bipartisan legislation that would have installed new asylum limitations if border crossings exceeded a certain threshold. Trump openly said the bill would be a “gift” to Biden and Democrats in an election year. The immigration debate has become a central issue in the 2024 presidential campaign as border crossings have reached record levels during Biden’s tenure. The president has sharpened his rhetoric on illegal immigration in recent months, suggesting he would “shut down the border” if Congress approved new immigration restrictions, weighing executive action to install additional enforcements and visiting the border in Texas on the same day as Trump last month.
The House passed Republican-sponsored legislation, titled the Laken Riley Act, earlier Thursday that would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain migrants charged with “local theft or burglary” after Ibarra was charged with shoplifting prior to Riley’s killing.