Fox News correspondent-at-large Geraldo Rivera said Monday he’s “ashamed” of the way migrants at the southern border are being treated “as if they’re zombies from ‘The Walking Dead.’”
The commentary from Rivera comes a day after border patrol agents deployed tear gas following Mexican authorities failure to halt a group of migrants from rushing the U.S. border. Members of the group were tear gassed after some began to throw rocks.
{mosads}“This goes to my soul. Fulfilling my role as the designated piñata on Fox News, I wanna say I am ashamed,” Rivera said on “The Five.” “The tear gas choked me. We treat these people — these economic refugees — as if they’re zombies from ‘The Walking Dead’!”
“We arrested 42 people, eight of them were women with children! We have to deal with this problem humanely and with compassion,” he continued. “These are not invaders. Stop using these military analogies. This is absolutely painful to watch!”
“We are a nation of immigrants. These are desperate people. They walked 2,000 miles. Why? Because they want to rape your daughter or steal your lunch? No. Because they want a job!” Rivera concluded. “They want to fill the millions of unfilled jobs we have in the agricultural sector. They want to wash dishes in the restaurants. They wanna deliver the pizzas. For goodness sake! We suspend our humanity when it comes to this issue, and I fear that it is because they look different than the mainstream.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Kevin McAleenan defended the use of tear gas on Monday, telling CNN it “prevented a dangerous situation from getting worse.”
“[CBP] effectively managed an extremely dangerous situation involving over 1,000 individuals who sought to enter the U.S. unlawfully in large groups,” McAleenan said. “They did so safely and without any reported serious injuries on either side of the border.”