Geraldo Rivera was repeatedly challenged by NewsNation host Leland Vittert as the two sparred over the issue of crimes committed by illegal migrants.
Vittert dealt the veteran journalist a reality check even as Rivera charged Republicans with turning illegal immigrants into a “boogeyman” and claiming they “commit fewer crimes proportionally” than American citizens.
The interview began with a bang, with the host of “On Balance with Leland Vittert” bringing up migrant crime to Rivera, a NewsNation contributor who dramatically departed from Fox News in 2023.
“Can we finally agree that illegal aliens who commit crimes should then be deported?” Vittert asked.
“Yes, I have no problem with the deportation of criminal aliens,” Rivera replied before offering his objections.
“I think that the problem with saying it that way is that you ignore the fact and the data, 140 years of data that illegal aliens so-called, undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes than legal residents,” he claimed.
“I’m gonna stop you right there. I’m gonna stop you right there,” Vittert interjected.
“No, no, no, no! Because we did an entire segment on this and the so-called data on Friday. It comes back to one study out of Texas about illegal immigrants who commit homicide,” he continued, prompting Rivera to argue, “That’s not true.”
“It is true!” Vittert shot back. “We don’t have 140 years of data about this, it’s just not true.”
“Yes, we do. Stanford University, I’ve read the study myself,” Rivera disputed. “We absolutely do, and why are you questioning my recitation of the data? I am absolutely confident that illegal immigrants, according to the data, including the Policing Institute, commit fewer crimes proportionally than citizens do.”
“The fact of the matter is that illegal immigrants have become the boogeyman of the current era! We can’t join that hysteria,” Rivera proclaimed.
The topic then turned to the murder of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a nursing student at Augusta University who was allegedly killed by an illegal migrant from Venezuela, and the fact that President Joe Biden has not directly addressed her tragic death.
“We both know that if Laken Riley had been a little black girl killed by a couple of white guys, Kamala Harris would have been at the funeral and Joe Biden would have been giving statements about it,” Vittert said. “Why isn’t he talking about this?”
Rivera responded by complaining about politicizing crimes.
“Mollie Tibbetts’ father said it was despicable and heartless to use her name in a political way,” he said, referring to the 20-year-old University of Iowa student who was killed in 2018 by a Mexican national.
“I believe that it is despicable and heartless in this case also,” Rivera said. “We have to work together to find solutions rather than try to politicize a specific crime or try to politicize an issue, scare people in the way they scared them about the Irish, scared them about the Italians, and they scared them about the Chinese.”
“No, no, no! This is very different,” Vittert pointed out.
“This is not scaring about a group of people coming here for a better life. This is talking about unvetted entrance into the United States illegally. Those are two very different things,” he said.
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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