Fox News personality and NBC "Celebrity Apprentice" runner-up Geraldo Rivera has an idea for Donald Trump: Make amends for calling some Mexican immigrants "rapists" by paying to repair New York's subway system.

Trump caused controversy in June when he said many of the immigrants who come across the U.S. southern border are "rapists." The remark came during his announcement that he will seek the Republican presidential nomination.

In the aftermath, Macy's, Univision and NBC Universal cut business ties with Trump. Then, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said his administration would reevaluate any business dealings the city has with Trump.

In an email to the Washington Examiner media desk, Rivera recalled public works Trump completed in New York — the total renovation of the Wollman skating rink, for example — and said the White House hopeful could redeem himself by paying to complete a long-delayed subway project.

"As reparation and recompense for his offensive remarks I think he should volunteer to finish our long-delayed, over-budget, never-ending 2nd Avenue Subway project, which has baffled numerous administrations and has been pending for at least a century," Rivera said.

The 2nd Avenue Subway project has been under construction, on and off, for decades.

Trump has so far refused to back down from the controversy, maintaining that his comment is accurate. Reliable numbers on illegal immigrants and crime are difficult to find. But a 2014 Pew Research study found that of the illegal immigrants who were deported in 2013, "33 percent had committed at least one felony — crimes ranging from murder to failure to appear in court, or at least three misdemeanors."

Rivera said Trump should still seek to clarify what came off, he said, as a generalization of all immigrants. "He should just say that he got it backward, that the vast majority of those coming across the border are otherwise law-abiding, hard-working men, women and children who only want to pursue the American Dream," he said. "But that mixed among them is manifestly a small percentage of drug dealers, rapists and murderers, enough that the USA must improve border security."