President Biden criticized for saying he was ‘raised in the Puerto Rican community’

President Joe Biden has been mocked on Twitter after making a claim during a press conference in Puerto Rico that he was “politically” raised in the US island territory.

Biden, along with First Lady Jill Biden visited Puerto Rico on Monday after they were affected by Hurricane Fiona, which hit Puerto Rico on September 18th.

While pledging $60 million in disaster recovery during the press conference, Biden went on to talk about his political history working in Puerto Rico, noting that his home state of Delaware has a “very, in relative terms, large” Puerto Rican community.

“I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home politically,” Biden said.

Biden’s comment was met by criticism on Monday evening from several Republicans, including Dr. Mariela Roca, who is a Republican running for Congress in Maryland. Roca was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

“Why is the left so thirsty for the Hispanic community?” Roca commented, replying to Biden’s tweet with Biden’s press conference video. “Que locos.”

Roca also targeted Jill Biden’s comments about Latino’s being as “unique” as tacos and Nancy Pelosi’s comments where she said that migrants should not be sent up north as they are needed in the south “to pick the crops.”

Jack Posobiec, who is a conservative pundit and senior editor at Human Events, also ridiculed Biden for his remarks.

“Joe Biden just seriously tried to go to [Puerto] Rico and tell them he’s Puerto Rican too,” Posobiec tweeted.

Hip-hop journalist Jayson Rodriguez, came to Biden’s defense and offered some context to his words.

“The discourse on Twitter can be so dumb. In Delaware, specifically in Wilmington, there’s a large Puerto Rican community (where my family lived). And Biden was mentored by/engaged with a lot of Latin + Black community activists as a young U.S. Senator.”

Illinois Senator Dick Durbin also defended Biden by saying he had recently met up with members of the Puerto Rican community in Chicago “to discuss how Congress can support our fellow Americans” who were impacted by Hurricane Fiona.

“Pleased to see @POTUS announce $60M through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to help [Puerto Rico] become better prepared for future storms,” Durbin said.