Fox News analyst Geraldo Rivera said Friday that President Trump’s proposed wall on the Mexican border is needed to keep out “Juan and Maria,” immigrants including babysitters, agricultural workers and manual laborers and keep its current “demographic makeup.”

During a Fox and Friends segment Friday, Rivera conceded that the border wall would not keep out transnational “dopers” or drug traffickers. But he said it would help keep out immigrant laborers who cross the border.

“The wall, I think, will cut down on the ‘Juan and Maria,’ the fruit-picker, the you know, the babysitter, the lawnmower, the dishwasher — those immigrants will be, I think, kept out by the wall,” Rivera said during the segment, according to Media Matters for America.

“Psychologically, we need the wall on the southern border because we are scared that the demographic makeup of the country is changing,” he continued. “There are so many people coming in. We need some enforcement.”

Geraldo Rivera: "The United States needs … psychologically we need the wall on the southern border, because we're scared that the demographic makeup of the country is changing" https://t.co/FD410JSbKu pic.twitter.com/SrTiSBco1F — Media Matters (@mmfa) August 3, 2018

Since launching his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump repeatedly has vowed to build the southern wall and make Mexico pay for it. His supporters eat it up, often chanting “build that wall!” at his campaign events.


And while Trump claims the wall is needed to keep drugs and “bad hombres” out, according to Rivera, people are mostly afraid of changing demographics, as Latino immigrants continue to settle in the United States.

Immigration from Latin America has been greeted with hostility by the Trump administration. In May, the government launched a “Zero Tolerance” policy, prosecuting anyone crossing the border outside an official port of entry, and in the process separating thousands of children from their parents.

After a public outcry, Trump issued an executive order requiring immigration officers to detain families together. However more than 2,000 kids were separated from their parents and despite a court order, many still have not been reunited.

Trump repeatedly has said that construction for his border wall has begun — a claim that has no relationship to the truth, since he has no funding for it. Congress has not appropriated funds for the wall, and former Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and his successor President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador have both insisted that Mexico will not pay for it either.