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A CNN panel erupted Tuesday after far-left podcast host Leigh McGowan called repeated discussions of Americans killed by illegal immigrants “exhausting” after a conservative panelist raised the strangling death of Massachusetts woman Brianna Connolly by an illegal immigrant.
The panel was discussing the death of Pierre Damas Bel, a 20-year-old Haitian-born college student in Ohio whose family said he died by suicide Monday after being required to wear an ankle monitor after losing his Temporary Protected Status. Ohio State Highway Patrol said Bel died after walking into traffic on Interstate 70 and that the incident remained under investigation.
If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
“Well, temporary does mean temporary, so eventually this individual may have been ordered to be removed,” The Federalist reporter Brianna Lyman said on the “NewsNight” panel. “I think it’s kind of insulting that we’re talking about this immigrant instead of Brianna Connolly from Massachusetts who was strangled last week by an illegal alien. Why is the focus never…”
The Federalist reporter Brianna Lyman clashed with PoliticsGirl host Leigh McGowan on CNN’s “NewsNight” after McGowan called repeated discussion of Americans killed by illegal immigrants “exhausting.” (Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
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McGowan interrupted Lyman as she mentioned Connolly’s killing.
“Oh my God!” she said. “It’s so exhausting. Over and over again.”
Lyman immediately responded by contrasting McGowan’s frustration with the experiences of victims’ families.
“It’s exhausting for you because your daughter wasn’t the one strangled,” Lyman said. “But it’s not exhausting for the parents of Americans who watch their children get murdered by illegal aliens.”
Lyman invoked the strangling death of Massachusetts woman Brianna Connolly during a CNN debate over Haitian migrants’ Temporary Protected Status, prompting a heated exchange over illegal immigrant crime. (Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty)
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Lyman responded to the clash in a statement to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, accusing the political left of becoming more upset when illegal immigrant crime is raised than by the crimes themselves.
“Leftists are objectively pro-crime, which is why Democrat-run cities are all riddled with crime. It’s the same reason why illegal alien crime doesn’t anger them but Americans mentioning it does,” she said. “There is something deeply sick about a political movement that treats murdered Americans as an inconvenience.”
The Remembrance Project National Spokesperson Maria Espinoza condemned McGowan’s reaction in an exclusive statement to Fox News Digital on Wednesday, saying it showed a lack of compassion for families mourning loved ones killed by illegal immigrants.
“Ms. McGowan clearly has no compassion or a place in her heart for the pain — her own fellow citizens’ pain and suffering — when their child/loved one is murdered by an illegal alien,” she said. “Every murder was 100% preventable. One has to question the inner makings of those who express ‘exhaustion’ from a mother’s living nightmare of burying their precious child. And the salt in their wound as these mothers mourn are people like McGowan.”
The Remembrance Project National Spokesperson Maria Espinoza and Lyman both criticized McGowan’s remarks in statements to Fox News Digital, saying victims’ families should not be treated as an inconvenience. (Courtesy of the Department of Homeland Security)
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On Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement identified Flavio Alcantra Dias, 43, as a Brazilian illegal immigrant accused in the strangling death of 33-year-old Connolly at her Framingham home.
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DHS said Dias illegally entered the United States in April 2019 and that an immigration judge terminated his immigration proceedings in October 2024 “based on a technicality.” Federal officials said he had also previously been arrested for DUI and aggravated assault.
The dispute came as the Trump administration continued efforts to terminate TPS for hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants. Fox News Digital reported that the Supreme Court had cleared the administration to end the protections while related litigation continued in federal court.
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Fox News Digital reached out to DHS and ICE for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
