Published March 13, 2024
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) dismissed the GOP-led Laken Riley Act as “smoke and mirrors” Tuesday, saying the immigration legislation was put forward by lawmakers “who are not serious.”
House Republicans led the lower chamber in passing the Laken Riley Act, which would require the Department of Homeland Security to take those living in the U.S. illegally into custody if they have been charged with theft-related crimes. Warnock pushed back on the legislation on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out,” noting that Congress already has a bipartisan deal on border related issues.
Let me, first of all, just say that my heart goes out to this young woman’s family. Laken Riley did not deserve what happened to her,” he said.
“To answer your question succinctly, this is smoke and mirrors by people who are not serious. We had a bipartisan piece of legislation in front of us. It had a lot of provisions, some provisions that some folks on my side didn’t like. But the only way to get comprehensive immigration reform, the only way to address the current crisis on the border in divided government, is on a bipartisan basis,” he added.
Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was found dead last month after her roommate reported that she hadn’t returned from a morning run on the University of Georgia (UGA) campus. Police have said she was killed by a Venezuelan migrant who entered the country illegally in 2022.
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SOURCE: www.thehill.com
RELATED: White House Accused of ‘Next Level Gaslighting’ as It Uses Word Games to Try to Get Biden Out of Laken Riley Mess
Published March 13, 2024
Did President Joe Biden apologize on national television for using the word “illegal” to describe a man who crossed the southern border illegally and is suspected in the brutal murder of a young American woman?
White House deputy press secretary Olivia Daltonta doesn’t think so.
During an Air Force One media briefing on Monday, a reporter prefaced a question by saying Biden has “apologized for calling Laken Riley’s killer an ‘illegal.’”
“Does — does he feel like he needs to apologize to illegal immigrants for calling them what they are — or using the term ‘illegal’?” the reporter asked, according to a White House transcript.
Dalton went on the offensive:
“Well, first of all, I want to be really clear about something,” she said. “The president absolutely did not apologize. There was no apology anywhere in that conversation. He did not apologize.
“He used a different word.”
It’s true that Biden didn’t use the word “apologize.” But he did express “regret” for using the word at the State of the Union to describe Jose Antonio Ibarra, the Venezuelan imgrant suspected in Riey’s death.
Ibarra is a Venezuelan who had already been arrested for crossing the border illegally by federal authorities. Back in the country again, he is suspected of killing
Riley.
