Fox Host Compares Deported DACA Recipient To “Thugs” Who “Waste” Opportunity Of Playing In The NFL

Ainsley Earhardt: “It's Just Like When We Talk About These Thugs That Play Football, And They Get The Opportunity To Play In The NFL ... And Then These Thugs Waste It. It's Just Like This Guy.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Fox host Ainsley Earhart compared Juan Manuel Montes Bojorquez, an undocumented immigrant who was deported despite protection from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, to “thugs that play football and they get the opportunity to play in the NFL” and “waste it.” Montes Bojorquez was deported to Mexico in February, and while reports about the sequence of events that led to his deportation are disputed, Fox is currently parroting the administration's allegations that Montes engaged in wrongdoing that merited deportation, by saying Montes “abused” his permit or “didn't follow the rules.” From the April 21 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:

AINSLEY EARHARDT (CO-HOST): It's just like when we talk about these thugs that play football, and they get the opportunity to play in the NFL. There are so many young high schoolers that would love to have that opportunity and they never do, and then these thugs waste it. It's just like this guy. We gave him an opportunity to come to this great country --

STEVE DOOCY(CO-HOST): The Dreamer?

EARHARDT: Gave him a permit. Yeah, we gave a work permit or a permit to go to college, that's what DACA does, and this guy abused it. He didn't follow the rules, he's out of the country. Sorry, let someone in under DACA that wants to be here and is going to follow the rules. 

BRIAN KILMEADE(CO-HOST): Was he actually scaling the wall to get back in?

DOOCY: Yeah. 

EARHARDT: He came in, over and over, twice at least!

DOOCY: Anyway, that's the part of the story you probably haven't heard on the other channels. 

KILMEADE: You should be bringing a pen, not a rope-ladder, that's the key.