Leave it to Fox News to somehow find a way to shoehorn the topic of illegal immigration and “migrant crime” into breaking coverage of the “brazen” murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, who authorities say was “specifically targeted” outside of a New York City hotel on Wednesday.
Moderating a panel discussion about the shocking attack, which took place early in the morning outside the New York Midtown Hilton, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner referenced a recent New York Post story about the number of “illegal migrants” in NYC who have criminal records.
While acknowledging that law enforcement hasn’t linked immigration to Thompson’s murder, Faulkner asserted that it was still a relevant topic because the sheer number of “migrant criminals” in the city is bogging down the New York Police Department.
“You know, I want to use this as a backdrop. Not only do we have tourists here, we recently found out the last day or so we have 58,000 known criminals who crossed our border illegally,” she breathlessly stated. “Not that there would be any connection, naturally, with this but it makes the work harder for the NYPD because they are already dealing with the rampant crime uptick from those individuals who broke our first law coming here illegally.”
After retired NYPD officer Darrin Porcher agreed that the “migrant crisis” has “dilapidated the quality of life” in New York, Faulkner added that “just in terms of fighting crime it makes it hard.” Saying that nearly 60,000 people in the city “intend to live a life of crime” now that they’ve migrated to the United States, Faulkner claimed that it made the police’s job of “locking down a crime scene” much more difficult.
“New York City is a sanctuary city,” Fox News contributor Leo Terrell noted. “Question mark — this guy had a mask on. Question mark — as far as cooperation that is gonna take place involving this individual. We don’t know his ethnicity. We don’t know his legal status.”
With the manhunt for the suspect underway, and police stating that the alleged gunman appears to be a light-skinned male who used a silenced firearm and fled the scene on a bicycle, the right-wing network’s hosts and commentators continued to invoke the “migrant crisis” while discussing the shooting.
Co-hosting the roundtable show Outnumbered, Faulkner once again brought up the “58,000 extra criminals on the ground here because we have let in so many illegals,” claiming that “there are some vicious, violent murderers” in that group.
“Not that that has anything to do with this case, except for this — that’s extra footwork for NYPD,” Faulkner exclaimed. “You’ve got to feel through all of that and you have people already trying to hide from law enforcement. So you’ve got to make sure everybody who is hiding faces and doing all that stuff isn’t part of — that is just mind-boggling. 58,000 of these people here, and these are the bad guys!”
Even though violent crime rates have continued to fall in recent years, with the FBI showing murder was down 23 percent in the first half of this year, Fox News obsessively covered the so-called “migrant crime” crisis throughout President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign.
Notably, the term — which became one of the key issues Trump fixated on in the runup to the election — first bubbled up within MAGA media after New York City Eric Adams argued in February of this year that the increase of migrants was affecting the crime rate in his city.
