“Nobody is talking about open borders,” say the folks who want to decriminalize crossing the border illegally, close all the migrant detention camps tomorrow, and just let everyone wander freely into the country, hopefully to a sanctuary city that refused to assist ICE in deporting criminals.
Much as the Wayfair workers who walked out to protest their beds being sold to the government so it could … provide beds to those unaccompanied migrant children, MoveOn and friends want to help migrant children by … kicking them out of their accommodations at places like Fort Sill Army Base?
Nationwide protests on Tuesday, July 2 demanding the closure of the inhumane immigrant detention centers subjecting children and families to horrific conditions. Sign up: https://t.co/VT3J4dbvf9 #CloseTheCamps pic.twitter.com/tS0k3wZUb5
— MoveOn (@MoveOn) June 29, 2019
The ACLU’s on board:
? Tuesday 7/2 we’re taking to the streets to demand:
• Congress hold @CBP and @ICEgov accountable for inhumane detention conditions
• Congress cut funding for both agencies
• The government finish reuniting families
• Kids in custody be released ASAPhttps://t.co/gosgWSwoe7— ACLU (@ACLU) June 29, 2019
So, yes, kids will be released ASAP — to where, we don’t know — and Congress will cut all funding to CBP and ICE.
Perhaps what’s even more galling than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others calling these “concentration camps” is the exploitation of the handful of children who have died in Border Patrol custody — and most likely would have died even sooner had they not been in Border Patrol custody.
Jakelin Caal Maquin & Felipe Gomez Alonzo are kids who died in custody because of inadequate medical care & language access policies. We must ensure immigration agencies provide all kids with medical screening & real-time interpretation services. #EndFamilyDetention #MothersDay
— MoveOn (@MoveOn) June 29, 2019
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OK, hold up. Though some spread the lie that Jakelin Caal Maquin had “died alone” in a CBP detention facility, she actually died in a hospital as doctors tried to save her life. Here’s Jake Tapper from the time:
Guatemalan Consul Tekandi Paniagua tells CNN’s @edlavaCNN he met extensively with the father of 7-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin Friday night in El Paso. Paniagua says the father of Jakelin has “no complaints about how Border Patrol agents treated him and his daughter.” 1/
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 15, 2018
2/ The consul says the father told him that agents did everything they possibly could to help the girl on the bus.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 15, 2018
According to a story in the Washington Post, Maquin was life-flighted to Providence Children’s Hospital in El Paso, where she was “was revived” from cardiac arrest brought on by days of starvation and dehydration. “However, the child did not recover and died at the hospital less than 24 hours after being transported,” CBP said. So, no, she didn’t die in a holding facility. She died in a hospital after doctors tried to undo days of damage to her system.
MoveOn calls life-flighting her to a hospital in El Paso “inadequate medical care.”
And Felipe Gomez Alonzo, the other child whose death MoveOn is exploiting? CNN reported at the time:
The death of an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died while in United States custody was caused by complications from the flu and a bacterial infection, the Central American country’s foreign ministry said.
Felipe Gómez Alonzo died of Influenza B complicated by a staph bacteria infection that led to sepsis, the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry said.
The boy died on Christmas Eve at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo, New Mexico, about 90 miles north of the border crossing in El Paso, Texas.
He was detained with his father for illegal entry about 3 miles west of the Paso del Norte port of entry in El Paso.
Felipe was taken to the hospital after a border agent noticed signs of illness, and the medical staff first diagnosed him with a common cold and later detected a fever.
“The child was held for an additional 90 minutes for observation and then released from the hospital midafternoon on December 24 with prescriptions for amoxicillin and Ibuprofen,” CBP said in a statement. Amoxicillin is a commonly prescribed antibiotic.
The boy began vomiting later that evening and was taken back to the hospital for evaluation. He died hours later, the CBP said.
So his father dragged the 8-year-old across Mexico to the border, where he was picked up by the Border Patrol, transported to a medical center in New Mexico, and treated for the flu and a staph infection. MoveOn calls that death by “inadequate medical care.”
MoveOn didn’t even mention the 10-year-old girl who died after receiving emergency surgery — in the U.S. — for congenital heart defects.
Are we just heartless, or is it possible the parents of these little children bear some responsibility? The children arrive at the border terminally ill and the CPB is blamed when they don’t make it.
But sure, defund everything and let them all go.
Related:
‘Be proud’: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez lauds colleague who said Border Patrol was intentionally killing children https://t.co/RODUpmdNgG
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) May 24, 2019
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