TikTok Influencer Fundraises For Illegal Alien Who Shot Tourist

Leonel Moreno, a TikTok influencer with nearly 300,000 followers who immigrated to the U.S. illegally from Venezuela, raised money this month on the Chinese social media platform for Jesus Alejandro Rivas-Figueroa, the 15-year-old Venezuelan and illegal alien who police arrested for shooting a gun in Times Square and wounding a tourist.

“I invite you to look for [his] mother and all of us join to pay the bail so that this young Venezuelan feels that you’re not alone in difficult times, but remembers that there is a God up there who sees,” Moreno said in a Feb. 12 TikTok video. “Today it could be him, tomorrow it could be you [ … ] He did something wrong, it’s okay.”

The defiant Venezuelan immigrant urged his 300,000 social media followers to “unite” behind the teenager from his home country who allegedly opened fire at police officers while on the run for shooting a tourist in the leg in New York City’s famous Times Square. The app’s users have watched the video over 2 million times.

“We are going to unite forces so that this child is free and has an opportunity,” Moreno said in a translation from Spanish by the New York Post of the TikTok video’s contents. “You don’t know when God is going to put you in a situation like the one this young man is in,” the influencer said.

“This is exactly the type of attitude that is really helping the migrants win the hearts and minds of New Yorkers to their cause,” New York City Councilman Joseph Borelli (R) said sarcastically.

Daniel Di Martino, a Manhattan Institute fellow who legally emigrated to the U.S. from Venezuela, said Moreno and his message are everything that is wrong with the broken immigration system in the United States.

“Americans should be outraged to see how someone can come [ … ] and abuse the laws and benefits of America,” Martino said. “Sadly, he’s just one of many who are ripping off the taxpayer because of our own badly written laws that allow them to collect some welfare and take years to decide asylum cases that likely will be denied.”