Another dead child: Trump's hostility to immigrants has become lethal
An eight-year-old dies on Christmas, as the Trump administration makes it harder for refugees to cross in safety
AMANDA MARCOTTE DECEMBER 26, 2018 6:45PM (UTC)
Those masochistic enough to read the news on Christmas Day were greeted with two stories of how Donald Trump's casual sadism affects even small children.
The second incident, however, was a grim reminder that Trump's endless well of sadism is not funny at all. Shortly before midnight on Christmas Eve, eight-year-old Felix Alonzo-Gomez died in the custody of the Border Patrol, after he and his father were taken into custody a few miles outside El Paso, Texas. Earlier this month, seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin died under similar circumstances, after crossing the border in New Mexico. Her body was laid to rest on Christmas Day in Guatemala, a country she, like Alonzo-Gomez, had been trying to escape from.
The timing of the death is evocative. As incoming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reminded her Twitter followers, the Christmas story is one of Jesus' nascent life being imperiled because of the inhospitable attitudes his travel-weary parents encountered. Indeed, along the border in the days before Alonzo-Gomez died, people will have participated in the annual tradition of the posada, a Mexican caroling tradition meant to invoke Joseph and Mary's attempts to find shelter during her labor.
https://www.salon.com/2018/12/26/another-dead-child-trumps-hostility-to-immigrants-has-become-lethal/
