Address showed Biden seeking a tricky balance on immigration

In his confrontation with the fraught immigration policy, President Biden wants to draw attention to the decision by Republicans in Congress, urged by former President Donald J. Trump, to block a bipartisan deal that would provide a cash injection for border security and the president the opportunity to close the border to asylum seekers.

On the defensive, Republicans have stepped up their years-long effort to tie migrants to heinous crimes.

Both strategies were on full display Thursday night when Mr. Biden delivered his State of the Union address. He claimed that it is Republicans who are now responsible for the problems at the border, while Republicans portrayed his policies as responsible for the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed in February. by a Venezuelan migrant.

The momentum has caused Biden, who has signaled a tougher line on immigration heading into the general election campaign, to walk a careful line, as his clash with Republicans on Thursday evening showed. He immediately promised to restore “order” at the border, while also pledging not to attack migrants in the manner of Trump and his allies.

“I will not demonize immigrants by saying they are poison in the blood of our country,” Mr. Biden said in his speech to a joint session of Congress, referring to statements by Mr. Trump that echoes of white supremacy.

“Unlike my predecessor, I know who we are as Americans, and we are the only nation in the world whose heart and soul draws from the old and the new,” Mr. Biden said. “Home to Native Americans whose ancestors have lived here for thousands of years, home to people from every place on earth.”

When Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, pressed him about Ms. Riley’s murder, he interrupted his prepared text to respond.

“An innocent young woman murdered by an illegal alien. That’s right,” Mr. Biden told Ms. Greene, using a term criticized as dehumanizing by many Democrats.

But he then claimed that thousands of murders had been committed by what he called “legals,” people who are legally in the United States.

While there has long been a concerted focus on linking immigrants to the increase in crime, Charis E. Kubrin, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California, Irvine, said the emphasis was misleading.

“What we found is that the increase in immigration into areas either has no impact on crime, or it causes crime to fall on average,” she said of her research, adding that the Riley case provided an opportunity to “ to politicize the issue, which is already political.”

Nevertheless, the intersection of immigration and crime has long raised fears of a threat from outsiders with malicious intentions.

Mr. Trump, who has called immigrant murderers, rapists and drug traffickers, often focused on the 2015 killing of Kate Steinle in San Francisco and the subsequent arrest of an undocumented man in the case. He linked border policy to crime in the country discuss the matter.

“Donald Trump was able to set the agenda and headlines of immigrant crime by repeatedly mentioning Steinle in his speeches, without much reaction from people who opposed him, including Hillary Clinton at the time,” said P. Deep Gulasekaram, professor of immigration . law from the University of Colorado Law School. “It has a lot of salience. It was there in 2015 and 2016, and it is clearly having a salient effect again.”

But the problem does not always progress predictably.

In July 2018, Mollie Tibbetts, a 20-year-old student in Iowa, was murdered by an undocumented man. The case attracted national attention and Mr. Trump called for changes to immigration laws.

In an opinion essay published in The Des Moines Registerher father called on people not to politicize the murder.

“The person accused of taking Mollie’s life is no longer a reflection of the Hispanic community the way white supremacists are of all white people,” he wrote. ‘To suggest otherwise is a lie. Justice in my America is blind.”

Tom Jawetz, a former official at the Department of Homeland Security under Mr. Biden, said it appeared the president was trying to accomplish three things: condemn Ms. Riley’s killing as a tragedy; to sympathize with her parents and call out Republicans for linking immigrants to crime.

Mr. Jawetz said it was notable that Mr. Biden, in an indirect way, “made the point that thousands are being murdered by American citizens and are not being demagogued.”

Mr. Jawetz said Mr. Biden should be prepared for the topic to come up again and tighten his message. The president’s reference to the suspect in the case as “illegal” has already drawn significant backlash from immigrant advocates.

Immigration politics show no signs of easing up in intensity, even as Biden, under election-year pressure, has shifted to the right. On Thursday, the House passed legislation named after Ms. Riley.

The measure, which would require migrants who enter the country illegally to be detained if accused of theft, has little chance of making headway in the Democratic-led Senate, but Republicans used it to draw Democrats into an uncomfortable vote. force.

The gamble appears to have worked to some extent: 37 Democrats in the House of Representatives supported the legislation, which challenged the Biden administration’s “open borders” policy.

Andrea Flores, a former Biden administration official, said the president’s ad-lib response to Republicans during his State of the Union address was similar to his working with Republicans on a border deal.

“He can respond to their rhetoric, but ultimately he is the only one who can change conditions on the ground,” she said, noting that action in Congress was extremely unlikely. “There is limited value in making these arguments that Democrats may have avoided until the administration can show voters that they have a better plan,” she said.