State of the Union 2024: Laken Riley murder spurs ad asking how many ‘killers has Biden set free’

Conservatives will put President Joe Biden on blast Thursday evening as he delivers his State of the Union address with a six-figure TV ad buy meant to remind the public of the implications of the burgeoning border crisis.

Right-leaning group Building America’s Future announced plans to bracket the presidential speech with two video ads that outline how the Biden administration’s immigration policy has had devastating impacts on the public, particularly the family of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.

Riley was murdered while on a jog last month, and the suspect in the case, Jose Ibarra, was an illegal immigrant who was released after crossing the border illegally and let go again by local police in New York City after being arrested for endangering a child while riding on a moped with his five-year-old son last year.

“Laken Riley should have been able to go on a run in broad daylight without being murdered by an illegal immigrant. But Joe Biden promised not to deport illegal immigrants,” the narrator says in the “Run” ad.

The ad shows older clips of Biden’s comments vowing not to deport or detain illegal immigrants, as well as his promise not to allow federal immigration officials at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take illegal immigrants who have been arrested by local and state police for crimes unrelated to immigration.

“So when Jose Ibarra crossed into America illegally, he was not deported, he was not put in jail,” the narrator says. “When Jose Ibarra was arrested in New York City for endangering a child, he was freed a second time. Ibarra went to Georgia, where he beat Laken Riley to death.”

“How many more killers has Biden set free?” the ad concludes.

Both ads will air nationally and in key battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

More than a thousand miles north of the southern border, Republican voters who turned out at the polls in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have one policy front of mind: immigration.

The border crisis surged past all other voter concerns, including foreign policy, the economy, and abortion, to become the greatest concern, according to primary and caucus exit polling.

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This growing sentiment among early state voters is no fluke. New polling from Monmouth University’s Polling Institute found that 8 in 10 voters from all parties see illegal immigration as either a very serious or somewhat serious problem.

Biden and likely 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump each visited the southern border a week ago Thursday.