Post misquotes Biden's remarks on Laken Riley in State of the Union address | Fact check
Andre ByikThe claim: Biden admitted 'illegals' are killing Americans by the thousands in SOTU speech
A March 7 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene interrupting President Joe Biden's State of the Union address.
"After MTG screams Laken Riley's name Biden goes off prompter, rattled and admits: 'Thousands of Americans are being killed by illegals,'" reads on-screen text.
Laken Riley was a 22-year-old Augusta University College of Nursing student who was killed in February, allegedly by a man who had entered the U.S. illegally.
The post was liked more than 1,000 times in a day.
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Our rating: False
Biden did not say or admit that thousands of Americans are being killed by "illegals." Video of the speech and news reports show that he said Riley was "killed by an illegal" before asking, "But how many thousands of people being killed by legals?"
MTG confronts Biden on immigration policies
Riley's killing has become a flashpoint in the 2024 election cycle, as Republicans and Democrats spar over immigration reform. The suspect in Riley's killing is a Venezuelan man who entered the U.S. in 2022 and was detained by immigration authorities before being released pending further immigration proceedings, USA TODAY reported.
The C-SPAN video in the Instagram post shows Greene, a Republican from Georgia, interrupting Biden's speech and yelling Riley's name. But while Biden responded by saying Riley was "killed by an illegal" – phrasing that has drawn rebukes from within his own party – the video and news reports show he did not follow up by saying "illegals" are killing Americans by the thousands.
Instead, he said, "But how many thousands of people (are) being killed by legals?"
Fact check: False claim Biden announced US citizenship pathway in southern-border comments
A 2023 National Bureau of Economic Research paper co-authored by Stanford University researcher Ran Abramitzky found that immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than the broader U.S.-born population in recent years. The study used U.S. Census data and focused on immigrants present in the Census regardless of their legal status and on men between the ages of 18 and 40, according to a news release about the study.
Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, published a report on Feb. 24 that examined homicide conviction rates between those who entered the country illegally and native-born Americans in Texas. He found that those entering illegally had a lower homicide conviction rate (2.4 per 100,000) than native-born Americans (2.8 per 100,000) in 2015.
The Instagram user who shared the video did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Our fact-check sources:
- C-SPAN, March 7, President Biden Delivers 2024 State of the Union Address
- The New York Times, March 8, Full Transcript of Biden's State of the Union Speech
- NBC News, March 7, 'Wake up': Biden delivers fiery State of the Union — sparring with critics and swiping at Trump
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