OPINION:
Geraldo Rivera, one of Fox’s go-to pundits, made an emotional plea on air about the after-effects of the murder of Mollie Tibbetts, telling his host, Martha MacCallum, and the no-doubt shocked and wide-eyed audience that Americans should show some “compassion” for immigrants and refrain from painting them all with a broad criminal brush.
Boy, talk about reading the tea leaves wrong.
Note to the left: When a young college girl is brutally murdered and an illegal immigrant is arrested as the key suspect, it might behoove to wait a bit — say, at least until a few days after the burial — before clanging the “poor immigrant” gong.
Here’s what Rivera said, as reported by the Hill: “I know most of the Fox audience disagrees with me, but I’m begging you to have compassion and not brand this entire population by the deeds of this one person.”
The “one person” to whom he was referring was Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a 24-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, who confessed to following the 20-year-old Tibbetts as she jogged along a country road, moments before her death. Rivera later led law enforcement to her body, cold and dead, buried beneath some corn stalks.
The outrage of Rivera’s remarks — that’s Geraldo, not Cristhian — is that nobody has been branding the entire class of illegal immigrants in America as a batch of murderers.
What the clear-thinking have been saying, however, is that a) illegals don’t belong in America, b) illegals who are in America are law-breakers by the very fact they’re here illegally and c) Tibbetts would not be dead right now had it not been for the actions — alleged actions, that is — of an illegal.
In Rivera’s mind, though — Geraldo, not Cristhian — it seems merely pointing out those facts is tantamount to skewering an entire community.
“We at this network,” he said on Fox, “are putting that spin on the story. This is a murder story, not an immigration story.”
Wrong.
This is a murder story that involves an illegal immigrant — and that naturally makes it a topic of border control discussion.
If we want to prevent sun burns, we talk about the need to stay out of the sun or protect ourselves from the powerful sun’s rays, and discuss the various ways we can do that.
If we want to lose weight, we talk about the need to eat proper foods, and discuss what constitutes proper nutrition, what items to avoid.
If we want to talk about lowering community crime rates, we talk about where the risks are and how citizens can protect themselves.
So why is it stereotyping, or “spin,” as Rivera accused, to talk about immigration law while referring to Tibbetts? Symptom, meet solution.
No matter how you spin it, fact is, crimes committed by illegals against American citizens, on American soil, wouldn’t have occurred if the illegals weren’t in-country in the first place.
Cristhian wouldn’t be in jail, facing murder charges for the death of Tibbetts, if he hadn’t been in this country illegally in the first place. And Tibbetts? Tibbetts would very likely be alive. Hmm. Now that sounds like a border control story based on a murder. That sounds like a much-needed time for talk about the state of America’s immigration.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley.
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