'Disgusting': Republican lashes out at 'fake news' report on 'political lightning rod'

A Republican senator from Tennessee expressed outrage on social media after an ABC News reporter told viewers there was "little evidence" to suggest immigrants are linked to violent crimes.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn took to X on Wednesday to rail against reporter Ike Ejiochi, who referred to the discourse around immigration and crime as a "massive political lightning rod."

Ejiochi took issue with President-elect Donald Trump's campaign blaming the Biden administration's "failed policies" as contributing to the slaying of Laken Riley.

José Ibarra was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted of murdering Riley. Ibarra entered the country illegally in 2022 and was paroled and released by immigration authorities. Ejiochi noted Ibarra was also arrested a second time before Riley's killing on charges of acting in a manner injurious to a child.

"But it's important to note that although there's very little evidence indicating a connection between immigration and violent crime, this is still something that President-elect Trump and several Republicans on the Hill essentially wanted to plant their flag on and point that to the current Biden administration," said Ejiochi.

He noted that firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) famously interrupted Biden's State of the Union address to make him acknowledge Riley.

"It is important to note that all of this vitriol we're hearing from Republicans and President-elect Trump regarding the policies of the Biden administration — it's important to note that President Trump did force Republicans to essentially tank a bipartisan border security bill that both sides of the aisle said would've addressed border security and immigration issues," said Ejiochi.

The clip was reshared on X by Blackburn, who blasted ABC News.

"ABC is fake news," she wrote. "It is misleading Americans and telling viewers there is 'little evidence' linking immigration & violent crime. They should tell that to Laken Riley’s parents. This is disgusting, and another prime example of why the mainstream media is falling in popularity."

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Blackburn has been associated with incendiary rhetoric that aligns with various conspiracy theories regarding immigration. This includes using terms such as "invasion" to describe the influx of migrants at the U.S. southern border, which echoes narratives found in the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory propagated by many on the right. The theory posits that liberals are deliberately trying to replace Americans with immigrants, often with racially charged undertones.

In an ad this year, Blackburn described America as being under attack by "terrorists," "thugs, drugs and gangs."

Aaron Chalfin, writing for the University of Pennsylvania's criminology department, noted that, "If anything, there is quite a bit of evidence that the immigrants we attract from Mexico serve to make us safer than we otherwise would be."

He pointed to the curious case of El Paso, Texas, a working-class city of about 700,000 people that sits opposite the Rio Grande river from Ciudad Juarez, "one of the most violent and lawless cities in Mexico." El Paso, he stressed, has one of the highest shares of immigrants among U.S. cities, many of whom are undocumented.

"If those who fear Mexican immigration are right, then El Paso should be a hotbed of violence," he said.

Not so — El Paso is one of the safest cities in the nation with a homicide rate of 2.4 per 100,000 residents.

"Incredibly El Paso's homicide rate is so low that it compares favorably to European capitals like London, Paris and Amsterdam, cities which have rates of lethal violence that are generally an order of magnitude lower than cities in the United States," he wrote.