Six in 10 voters say it’s appropriate to use “illegals” to describe border violators, and more than half say Biden was wrong to backtrack after using it in the State of the Union address

President Joe Biden drew the ire of the left when he used the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address, but he didn’t have to worry too much, at least according to the latest JL Partners/DailyMail.com poll 2024.

Six in 10 Americans are okay with using the term to describe people who have entered the U.S. illegally.

But Biden faced a volley of criticism after using the term while mentioning Laken Riley, a student who was murdered in Georgia, saying she was “an innocent young woman who was murdered by an illegal alien.”

Critics say using the term “illegals” is inhumane to the migrants 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 show that most Americans think this sentence is fine and that Biden should not have backtracked later.

After the State of the Union ended, many congressional Democrats disagreed with Biden using the term, with some saying the president was wrong to use the term.

The 2024 JL Partners/DailyMail.com survey of 1,000 likely voters online found that 60 percent find the term appropriate, while only 30 percent say it is inappropriate.

The remaining 10 percent answered “Don’t know.”

“Biden is at his best when he speaks spontaneously. “One of the reasons he won in 2020 was because he was seen as more authentic than the robotic, politician-like Hillary Clinton,” James Johnson, co-founder of JL Partners, said of the poll results.

“When he showed this side at the State of the Union and denounced the ‘illegal’ who murdered a young woman, voters largely agreed with him.”

“This poll shows not only that Biden should not have returned, but also the enormous gap between much of the Democratic/liberal establishment and the average voter.”

The unscripted moment prompted many Spanish lawmakers to correct the president, with some saying the commander-in-chief was wrong for saying it.

“There was a lot of good in President Biden’s speech tonight, but his rhetoric about immigrants was inflammatory and wrong,” Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, wrote X to Biden’s address.

Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, called Biden’s use of the term “very disappointing.”

He even called his use of the phrase a “kind of dangerous rhetoric,” according to NBC News.

“We cannot tout a strong economy and nation while vilifying immigrants who contribute so much to the strength of both,” Padilla said.

President Joe Biden takes a selfie with Representative Veronica Escobar, member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, after delivering his State of the Union address and mentioning the term “illegal”

The survey also found that more than half of Americans believe Biden should not have reversed use of the term “illegal,” with 54 percent of respondents saying he should not have reversed course.

Conversely, 30 percent said he was right when he came back, and 15 percent said they didn’t know.

Respondents’ answers about the appropriateness of “illegals” and Biden’s use of the phrase fall mainly along party lines.

Nearly half of Democrats (48 percent) said the phrase was inappropriate, while an overwhelming 81 percent of Republicans said it was appropriate.

Interestingly, most Independents think ‘illegals’ is a nice term to use, with 62 percent of them responding that it was appropriate. Only 26 percent of them said it was inappropriate.

And the trend continued in Biden’s withdrawal.

A majority of independents – 61 percent – ​​and Republicans – 72 percent – ​​said Biden should not have returned.

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 returned, while 30 percent of Democrats said he should not have.