Former president Donald Trump slammed President Joe Biden for expressing regret on Saturday in using the term "illegal" with reference to the person suspected of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
Biden apologized after some members of his political party expressed annoyance at the president's use of the term to characterize individuals who entered the country illegally.
"I shouldn't have used illegal, it's undocumented," he said in an interview with NBC news.
Biden used the term last Thursday when he was pressuring Republicans to approve the bipartisan border security agreement in his speech. The president was then yelled at by staunch Trump supporter Greene to mention Riley's name, adding that she was killed "by an illegal." "By an illegal, that's right," Biden responded immediately, before appearing to ask how many people are being killed by "legals."
In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, Republicans are mobilizing around Riley's murder and the Biden administration's handling of the immigration crisis at the US-Mexico border.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump, attacked the Democrat's immigration policies and blamed them for Riley's death at a rally in Georgia. In contrast to Biden's apology, the former president called out Riley's alleged killer as 'an illegal alien.'
"Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Laken's murderer an illegal," he said in his campaign rally, joined by Riley's parents, her sister, and friends on Saturday. "Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer."
"What Joe Biden has done on our border is a crime against humanity and the people of this nation for which he will never be forgiven," Trump added.
During his State of the Union address this past week, Biden also came under fire from Trump for his handling of Riley's name and border policies in a nearly two-hour speech. Biden, accompanied by his wife Jill and both of Georgia's Democratic senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, held the rally at the trendy Pullman Yards facility on Atlanta's east side before a crowd of about 500 people.
In his State of the Union, Biden did address Riley's parents, expressing that having lost two children himself, he is aware of the suffering that comes with child loss.
Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was killed while she was jogging on the campus of the University of Georgia. Jose Ibarra, a 26-year-old Venezuelan national who is accused of being an illegal immigrant and facing charges of felony murder, kidnapping, and false imprisonment, was taken into custody by the police.
Since Laken's murder, the US House of Representatives has passed the Laken Riley Act. The act requires the federal detention of illegal immigrants who have committed burglary or theft.
