Fox News Channel's Geraldo Rivera argued on Friday that the suspected perpetrator in a mass shooting at a New Zealand mosque was a "crazy mass murdering fiend" who "was motivated by the immigration crisis."



Rivera's reaction comes after at least one gunman opened fire at two mosques in downtown Christchurch, New Zealand, killing at least 49 people and seriously injuring more than 40 others.

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The suspected gunman published live footage of the shooting on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter while also publishing a manifesto attacking immigrants.

"These are sitting ducks, these are people who are praying, they are targets that have no defense," Rivera told "Fox & Friends" on Friday morning in reacting to the news. "There are more murders in those two mosques in New Zealand this morning than there are in New Zealand over the course of an entire year."

"The manifesto seems to indicate this particular crazy, mass-murdering fiend was motivated by the immigration crisis. He said that he is a white nationalist, a 28-year-old Australian white nationalist," the correspondent at-large continued. "Immigration is as hot an issue there as it is here or in Great Britain."



"This was a butcher out to get a butcher’s bill. And indeed, if there were three or four perpetrators, this is a very, very serious attack. They're all white nationalists. That's an escalation of the violence that is horrifying," Rivera concluded.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern confirmed that one of the attackers detained Friday was Australian.

“It is clear that this can now only be described as a terrorist attack,” Ardern said Friday.

Authorities told CNN that they "will not be discussing the offenders' possible motivations or the causes of this incident" at this time.