Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old suspected driver within the New 12 months’s truck assault in New Orleans, was a United States citizen and US Military veteran.
However inside hours of the assault – which killed 15 folks and is being investigated as an act of terrorism – President-elect Donald Trump, Republican leaders and social media influencers speculated that Jabbar entered the US illegally.
Citing Fox Information, social media accounts on January 1 mentioned Jabbar “crossed the US-Mexico border on the Eagle Move crossing simply two days in the past” and that there was “blood on the fingers of the Biden administration”.
US Consultant for Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a 38-second Fox Information clip and wrote on X that Jabbar “is alleged to have come throughout the border in Eagle Move TWO DAYS AGO!!! Shut the border down!!!”
New Orleans terrorist attacker is alleged to have come throughout the border in Eagle Move TWO DAYS AGO!!!
Shut the border down!!!
Who did our authorities bomb recently that’s taking it out on harmless Individuals?
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 1, 2025
Donald Trump Jr said on X that Biden’s “parting reward” to the US was “migrant terrorists”.
Biden’s parting reward to America — migrant terrorists. https://t.co/PQBr8A6KDt
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 1, 2025
The president-elect referenced the assault on Truth Social on the morning of January 1, writing that “the criminals coming in are far worse than the criminals we’ve in our nation”.
At about 3am in New Orleans on New 12 months’s Day, legislation enforcement officers say that Jabbar rammed Bourbon Road crowds with a rented Ford F-150 pick-up truck earlier than he died in a police shootout.
A minimum of one Fox Information broadcast on January 1 reported that the truck had crossed the US southern border two days earlier and was pushed by Jabbar, citing “federal sources”.
Reporters walked this again inside minutes on air. The community issued a correction inside an hour saying that the truck entered the nation in mid-November and it wasn’t pushed by Jabbar.
Nevertheless it was too late to include false claims that Jabbar was within the US illegally. PolitiFact contacted Fox Information however didn’t hear again by publication.
Right here’s how misinformation in regards to the suspect unfold.
Fox Information’ reporting timeline
As officers labored to substantiate particulars in regards to the assault, Fox Information reported that the pick-up truck Jabbar rented got here into the US on the Eagle Move, Texas, border crossing.
At 10:40am ET (15:40 GMT) on January 1, a Fox Information reporter mentioned federal sources had licence plate knowledge putting the suspect and the truck on the southern border days earlier than the assault:
“In line with federal sources, the suspect drove a truck with that Texas licence plate – OK, so that is simply coming into our newsroom, that is from Griff Jenkins and David Spunt working their federal sources on this, the suspect drives that truck with the Texas licence plate proper by Bourbon Road. In line with their sources, to Spunt and Jenkins, this individual got here by Eagle Move, Texas, two days in the past.”
At about 10:47am ET (15:47 GMT), Fox Information correspondent David Spunt made clear that reporters didn’t know whether or not Jabbar was driving the truck.
“We’re listening to that the automobile was traced to coming throughout from Mexico into the USA at Eagle Move, Texas, two days in the past. To be clear, we don’t one hundred pc know that this man, and we do know the suspect is a person, was the individual driving that throughout the border. That’s unclear at this level,” Spunt mentioned.
“We simply know that the precise licence plate was picked up by a reader at a border crossing. That is per two federal legislation enforcement sources to Fox Information – that it was picked up crossing at that border station at Eagle Move, Texas, two days in the past. I do know that raises extra questions than solutions however we’re offering data to our viewers as we get it, probably the most correct data, in order that’s what we all know proper now.”
Trump despatched his Reality Social publish about “the criminals coming in” at 10:48am ET (15:48 GMT).
At 11:55am ET (16:55 GMT), Fox News corrected the timeline on air, saying that the truck crossed the border in mid-November and confirmed that it wasn’t pushed by Jabbar.
“Our sources now inform Fox that that truck from Eagle Move, Texas, didn’t cross two days in the past. It crossed on November 16, and the identification of the driving force that crossed the border doesn’t seem like the shooter,” Fox Information correspondent Bryan Llenas mentioned.
PolitiFact didn’t discover cases of Fox Information on-air personalities repeating the unique faulty report in subsequent segments all through the day.
Regardless of Fox’s correction, many of those faulty posts stay on-line with out clarification.
Trump continued to fan the incorrect immigration angle in one other Truth Social post on January 2, lengthy after legislation enforcement confirmed Jabbar was a US citizen.
“With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Coverage’ I mentioned, many occasions throughout Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and different types of violent crime, will turn out to be so unhealthy in America that it’ll turn out to be onerous to even think about or consider,” Trump wrote. “That point has come, solely worse than ever imagined.”
In a January 2 media briefing, Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, mentioned Jabbar picked up the F-150 in Houston on December 30 and drove to New Orleans on the night of December 31.
