Fox News Contributor Pushes Trump To Use Cop-Killing To Boost Shutdown ‘Bargaining Power’ (VIDEO)

Campos-Duffy on Trump's border wall
Screenshot by Fox News Insider via YouTube video

One Fox News contributor seems to suggest President Donald Trump should use the recent death of a California police officer as a sort of bargaining chip for his border wall.

Appearing Friday on Outnumbered Overtime, Rachel Campos-Duffy said Trump should politicize the death of police officer Ronil Singh in Newman, California to secure the funding for his border wall, Mediaite reports.

Singh’s murder on Wednesday has created plenty of media controversy and the suspect, Gustavo Perez Arriaga, was arrested Friday morning at a home in Bakersfield, California, The Modesto Bee reports. Adrien Virgen, the suspect’s 25-year-old brother, and co-worker Erik Razo Quiroz, 35 were also arrested on alleged accessory charges.

Arriaga reportedly illegally crossed the border into Arizona several years ago. And according to Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christiansen, Arriaga was on his way back to Mexico.

So of course, Campos-Duffy is banging the drum for Trump to use fear-mongering tactics by capitalizing on Singh’s death to sledgehammer Democratic opposition to the wall:

“His bargaining power would increase if he gets out the message more,” she said. “Twitter has been great, but it’s not enough. We had a police officer die at the hands of an illegal immigrant just yesterday. It was absolutely tragic, but this is more than just the crimes that comes over the border, we have drugs that are coming over the border that are devastating communities…I think he needs to make the case to the American people.”

Campos-Duffy contended that even though the shutdown impacts the whole country, Trump will win the political battle if he pushes a strong message and gains the trust of the people. She seems to be echoing what Corey Lewandowski, who appeared earlier on Fox News said when he said Democrats should be held accountable for Singh’s death.

But the social science research on this is quite clear, The Washington Post reports. Undocumented immigrants are much less likely than native-born citizens. Scores of studies have been published in the last several months that clearly illustrate this. One study in particular, by the Libertarian Cato Institute, examined 2015 criminal conviction data provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety. And it found that native-born citizens were far likelier to commit crimes than immigrants whether they were legal or illegal.

This 2015 chart shows the criminal conviction rates by immigration rates in Texas. Chart by The Cato Institute.

Further, the institute notes there were 785 homicide convictions in Texas, and out of that number 709 native-born American citizens were convicted. Illegal immigrants were convicted of 46 homicides and legal immigrants were convicted of 30 homicides.

The Cato Institute included numerous other charts which showed just how low crime rates are for illegal and undocumented immigrants. These figures belie fears promulgated by Trump and media figures like Campos-Duffy. Anti-immigrant rhetoric is harmful, and as these charts show, just plain wrong.

And that’s unfortunate because it harms people who are trying to escape situations most of us can barely imagine.

Watch Campos-Duffy in the video below and see what you think.

Screenshot by Fox News Insider via YouTube video