As Fox & Friends’ hysteria over a caravan of migrants continued Tuesday, a guest was lauded by co-host Brian Kilmeade for advocating the denial of asylum-seekers “from a Christian standpoint.”
“America is definitely not a theocracy, but we are without a doubt a nation of Christians, and as such, we know we’re commanded to give refuge to those who are in need. But here’s the thing: We’re not being allowed to welcome them into the nation. They’re storming the border!” said Christopher Harris, the executive director of media company Unhyphenated America, which states that “cultural cohesion and connectedness is more important than having a ‘diversity’ of skin color.”
“You know what I ask? Knock on the door, ring the doorbell, allow me to open the door to let you come in. And that’s what they’re not doing. They’re demanding to come in,” Harris continued.
Harris said his argument was supported by a random guess at the makeup of those fleeing violence and poverty in Central America.
“Even from a Christian standpoint, the Bible talks about ‘who are the poor,’ right?” he asked. “It’s the women and children. And what you’ll see at the border, it’s probably, like, 90 percent adult males.”
Kilmeade responded: “Right.”
The exact demographics of the more than 5,000-person caravan has been difficult to pin down, even as rumors have been floated at Trump rallies—and Fox News—about “unknown Middle Easterners” and “hardened criminals.”
“These are some bad people coming through, these aren’t babies, these aren’t little angels coming into our country,” Trump has said. “These are hardened criminals. And I don’t want them in our country.”
But the asylum-seekers from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador are largely fleeing violence and poverty or attempting to reconnect with family in America. Many of them said they joined the exodus because it provided safety in numbers.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said 93 percent of the migrants on another caravan in April were allowed to enter the country after they passed a credible-fear interview.
Dozens of reporters—like Kevin Sieff, a Latin America correspondent for The Washington Post—have documented photos of sleeping children, young girls carrying stuffed animals, and toddlers riding on their parents’ shoulders.
“In many cases, they literally are babies,” Sieff wrote. “But in general, the best way to think about the caravan is not as a concentrated group of good or bad people, or young or old people, or asylum-seekers or economic migrants.”
“Instead, it’s as if an entire town collected its belongings in backpacks and plastic bags, and started walking north,” he added.
One caravan member told The Daily Beast this week: “We are wholesome people with a drive to succeed and help those who are to close us.”
