Fox News Uses Hate Group’s Graphic to Illustrate Unfounded Accusation
From Southern Poverty Law Center:
Rumors that migrants attempting to cross the border illegally are the source of Arizona’s wildfires are spreading like, well, wildfire.
Never shy about fanning the flames of extremism, Fox News yesterday ran a surveillance photo, created on June 12 by Glenn Spencer, racist head of the anti-immigrant hate group American Border Patrol (described by Fox as an “independent organization that monitors the border”). The photo ran alongside a story quoting an Arizona sheriff who claimed without evidence that the “highest probability” is that a massive wildfire near the Coronado National Forest was started by foreign drug traffickers or smugglers bringing immigrants across the border.
“There’s really only one likely source of this fire and that’s someone who was moving through the area illegally,” Cochise County Sheriff Larry Dever – who characterized Spencer’s graphic as an “accurate picture” of the inferno’s origin – told Fox. “It’s evidence of illegal trafficking. It’s the result of illegal activity any way you look at it. It wasn’t naturally caused,” he continued. “This has been going on for years. I’d ask anyone to present me another logical explanation.”