UPDATE 1-NBC, Fox News pull Trump campaign ad linking immigration, crime

NBC and Fox News said on Monday they pulled a television advertisement on immigration that was endorsed by President Donald Trump and deemed "racist" by CNN.

The primetime ads, paid for by Donald J. Trump for President, ran during a "Sunday Night Football" broadcast and linked Luis Bracamontes, an undocumented immigrant convicted of killing two sheriff's deputies in California in 2014 to the caravan of immigrants fleeing Central America.

The ad was placed on the popular football broadcast to encourage voters to choose candidates from Trump's Republican party in midterm elections on Tuesday that will determine whether Republicans retain control of the U.S. Congress.

"After further review we recognize the insensitive nature of the ad and have decided to cease airing it across our properties as soon as possible," said a spokesperson for NBC Universal, owned by Comcast Corp, in an emailed statement on Monday.

The ad was earlier rejected by CNN who labeled it "racist."

"CNN has made it abundantly clear in its editorial coverage that this ad is racist. When presented with an opportunity to be paid to take a version of this ad, we declined. Those are the facts," the network tweeted on Nov. 3.

Fox News issued a statement about taking down the ad shortly after NBC, according to a CNN report.

"Upon further review, Fox News pulled the ad yesterday and it will not appear on either Fox News Channel or Fox Business Network," Marianne Gambelli, Fox News' president of advertisement sales, told CNN in a statement.

Fox News was no immediately reachable for further comment.

For all Reuters election coverage, click: https://www.reuters.com/politics/election2018

(Reporting by Kenneth Li; editing by Grant McCool and David Gregorio)

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)