Biden’s use of the I-word should also be viewed in context with the current proliferation of the “migrant crime” narrative, which claims that migrants are bringing crime into the country. In 2022, research that Define American released with the Norman Lear Center revealed a shocking statistic: 40% of all migrant characters on scripted television shows aired between July 2020 and June 2022 were associated with crime, an all-time high since the survey was first conducted in 2018. Source
Get used to the media and Republicans throwing around the “Illegal” word. Want to get your behind out and start encouraging Latino people to vote and vote for Biden and all Democrats? Criticizing the president is playing into the racist’s hands.
Seven years later, in Thursday’s State of the Union address, President Joe Biden echoed Trump’s dehumanizing rhetoric, referring to an undocumented immigrant who allegedly killed a young woman as “an illegal.” Reacting to a clip of the moment on CNN, Pelosi remarked, “He should have said ‘undocumented,’ but it’s not a big thing.”
And you know what? She’s right. Even though Biden told The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart in an MSNBC interview Saturday that he regrets using that word – and a White House spokesperson felt the need to clarify today that the president “absolutely did not apologize” – it’s not a big thing that a sitting US president referred to a group of people as “illegal.” Obsessing over this single word loses sight of the more sobering reality that, in action and in copious, insidious words, Trump will be worse on immigration than Biden if reelected.
Jose Antonio Vargas, a former Washington Post reporter, is the founder of Define American, which works to humanize immigrants through narrative engagement, and the author of “Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen.”
Words do matter. And on immigration, actions matter even more. It’s not about what Biden ends up calling us. It’s about what Biden does – and can do – to fight for millions of people like me who may have a voice but don’t have a vote.
Let us first ensure that we keep Trump out of the White House, as we have a lot of issues to tackle. One is the right for women to their bodies. Another is the change of the corrupt Supreme Court and some of its members. If we don’t do something about the stolen Supreme Court, we won’t be able to improve things in America.