Biden says he regrets using term ‘illegal,’ as Trump hosts Laken Riley’s family at rally

ATLANTA (AP) — President Joe Biden said Saturday that he regrets using the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the suspected killer of Laken Riley, as his all-but-certain 2024 rival Donald Trump blamed Biden for her death at a rally attended by the Georgia nursing student’s family.

Biden expressed remorse in an interview Saturday after facing frustration from some in his party for the use of the term to describe people who arrived or are living in the U.S. illegally. “I shouldn’t have used illegal, it’s undocumented,” he told MSNBC. The term was once common but is far less so today, particularly among Democrats who more fully embraced immigrant rights’ issues during Trump’s presidency.

The death of Riley, a nursing student, has become a rallying cry for Republicans, a tragedy that they say encompasses the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S-Mexico border amid a record surge of immigrants entering the country. An immigrant from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally has been arrested and charged with her murder.

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