President Joe Biden drew the ire of the left when he used the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address, but he shouldn’t worry too much, at least according to the latest JL Partners/DailyMail.com 2024 poll.
Six in 10 Americans say it’s perfectly fine to use the term to describe people who entered the United States illegally.
But Biden received a barrage of criticism after using the term when mentioning Laken Riley, a college student who was murdered in Georgia, saying she was “an innocent young woman who was murdered by an illegal.”
Critics say the use of the phrase “illegals” is dehumanizing to immigrants who enter the country illegally.
The president later backtracked, telling an MSNBC host shortly after his speech: “I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal… it’s ‘undocumented.'”
However, the poll results reveal that most Americans think the phrase is fine and that Biden should not have backed down later.
Joe Biden said Laken Riley was “an innocent young woman who was murdered by an illegal” during his State of the Union address. He later came under fire for using the term that Democrats consider dehumanizing.
After the State of the Union ended, many congressional Democrats objected to Biden’s use of the term, with some saying the president made a mistake in using the term.
The 2024 JL Partners/DailyMail.com survey of 1,000 likely online voters found that 60 percent think the term is appropriate, while only 30 percent say it is inappropriate.
The remaining 10 percent responded “I don’t know.”
“Biden is best when he speaks spontaneously. In fact, one of the reasons he won in 2020 was because he was seen as more authentic than the robotic, political Hillary Clinton,” James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, said of the survey results.
“When he showed this facet in the State of the Union, denouncing the ‘illegal’ who murdered a young woman, voters very much agreed with him.”
“The results of this poll not only show that Biden should not have backed down, but also the huge disconnect between much of the Democratic/liberal establishment and the average voter.”
The unexpected moment led many Hispanic lawmakers to correct the president, some saying the commander in chief made a mistake when he pronounced it.
“There was a lot of good in President Biden’s speech tonight, but his rhetoric about immigrants was inflammatory and misguided,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, wrote in x after Biden’s speech.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif. and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called Biden’s use of the term “deeply disappointing.”
He even called the use of the phrase a “dangerous type of rhetoric,” according to NBC News.
“We cannot trumpet a strong economy and a strong nation and at the same time vilify the immigrants who contribute so much to the strength of both,” Padilla said.
President Joe Biden takes a selfie with Rep. Veronica Escobar, a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, after delivering his State of the Union and mentioning the term ‘illegal’
The poll also found that more than half of Americans say Biden should not have backed down on his use of the term “illegal,” and 54 percent of respondents said he should not have changed his mind.
By contrast, 30 percent said they were right to back down and 15 percent said they didn’t know.
Respondents’ responses about the appropriateness of “illegals” and Biden’s use of the phrase fell largely along partisan lines.
Nearly half of Democrats (48 percent) said the phrase was inappropriate, while an overwhelming 81 percent of Republicans said it was appropriate.
In particular, most independents think “illegal” is a good phrase, and 62 percent of them responded that it was appropriate. Only 26 percent of them said it was inappropriate.
And the trend continued toward Biden’s retreat.
Majorities of independents (61 percent) and Republicans (72 percent) said Biden should not have backed down.
Democrats, by a much smaller margin, said Biden was right to walk back his use of the phrase. Only 51 percent of Democrats said he should have backed down, while 30 percent of Democrats think he should not have done so.