Fox News commentator: Black people I've talked to say immigrant detention centers are nicer than the projects
- Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy defended President Donald Trump's controversial "zero-tolerance" immigration policy and the conditions of detention facilities for immigrant children.
- Campos-Duffy, a former reality TV star and wife of a Republican congressman, said she had spoken with "some African Americans" who say the detention centers are better than public housing.
- The comments sparked immediate criticism online.
Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy, a conservative activist and wife of Republican Rep. Sean Duffy, defended President Donald Trump's controversial "zero-tolerance" immigration policy, noting that "some African Americans" told her that the detention facilities for immigrant children forcibly separated from their parents are "better" than public housing.
"People aren't stupid," Campos-Duffy said on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle" on Thursday night. "I spoke to some African-Americans who say, 'Gosh, the conditions of the detention centers are better than some of the projects that I grew up in.'"
Campos-Duffy, a former reality TV star whose grandparents emigrated to the US from Mexico, suggested that the detention facilities shouldn't be criticized because immigrant children are "far safer" in US custody than they were on their journey to the US-Mexico border.
Critics of Trump's family separation policy, which Trump reversed with a Thursday executive order, chiefly argue that the forcible separation of children from their parents amounts to child abuse.
The comments sparked immediate controversy online.
"Which African-Americans? I don't remember this coming up at our monthly meetings, the ones we all have, together, because we are all very much alike," tweeted Vox reporter Jane Coaston.
New York Times Magazine writer Nicole Hannah Jones tweeted in response to the clip, "Please have these so-called African Americans you so-called talked to do an on-camera interview about how they lived in cages with tin-foil blankets away from their parents. Which projects were these? The projects of the white imagination."
Laura Ingraham, the host of the show Campos-Duffy appeared on, received widespread criticism after calling the child detention centers "essentially summer camps" earlier this week. And, on Friday morning, "Fox and Friends" host Brian Kilmeade said immigrant children don't deserve as much compassion as American kids from "Idaho or Texas."