Donald Whitehead, Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless is calling for the removal of Fox and Friends show hosts Lawrence Jones, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade

A Fox News anchor suggested the government should give homeless people “involuntary lethal injection,” the latest indication that rhetoric against the group is quickly on the rise.

On Wednesday’s Fox and Friends show, hosts Lawrence Jones, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade were discussing the recent murd*r of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who was fatally stabbed in a light-rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The suspect’s identity, a Black homeless man with a long history of violent crime, has sparked outrage among conservatives, who have taken the opportunity to spew hate at different marginalized groups.
Enraged at the situation, the Fox hosts demanded the government take a stronger approach at handling the homelessness crisis.

“They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don’t want to take the programs, a lot of them don’t want to get the help that is necessary,” Jones said. “You can’t give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we’re going to give you — or you decide that you are going to be locked up in jail.”

“Or involuntary lethal injection,” Kilmeade continued. “Or something. Just k1ll them.”

Homeless organizations have denounced the hosts’ comments, saying hateful rhetoric contributes to the dehumanization of people experiencing homelessness.

“It is dangerous. It shows a lack of human compassion and it is really the worst possible time for that kind of language to be expressed,” Donald Whitehead, Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless told The Irish Star, calling for the removal of the Fox hosts.

The recent suggestion comes as the Trump administration toughens their rhetoric against unhoused individuals.

In August, the president told people experiencing homelessness in Washington, DC, to “move out immediately” or the federal government will begin forcibly “removing” encampments that have turned the city “into a wasteland.”

“The homelessness problem has ravaged the city,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday. “If they refuse, they will be susceptible to fines or to jail time.”

The administration has similarly pledged to criminalize homelessness, making it easier for law enforcement to punish those who live on the streets.

“What Trump is proposing is government-run detention camps and massive psychiatric asylums,” Jesse Rabinowitz, communications and campaign manager with the National Homelessness Law Center in Washington, DC told The Independent.

“We have done massive institutionalization in this country. It didn’t work. It was inhumane, and that’s why we don’t do it anymore,” he continued. “But Donald Trump wants to take our country backwards.”

Whitehead also condemned the administration’s rhetoric, underscoring that that kind of rhetoric can have v1olent consequences for the rest of the country.

“We strongly condemn the dehumanization of people who are marginalized in our country. It absolutely has consequences,” he said. “We have been tracking violence against people experiencing homelessness since 1999, and we have documented almost 2,000 events where people have been beaten, they’ve been firebombed, they’ve been shot. Just last year or two years ago, there were serial k1llers in Washington, DC, and New York and in Detroit.”

“We are very concerned that we’ll see an uptick, and we’re doing the research now because we’ve never seen that kind of rhetoric come from the top of the elected officials in this country,” he added. “The president has a really strong megaphone, and him saying that, we think, is a recipe for disaster when it comes to people being harmed on the streets of this country.”

According to research by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, criminalization does not end homelessness, it makes it worse, as each move-along order or encampment eviction perpetuates a cycle and furthers marginalization.