Guatamalan Migrant Boy Dies in Spite of Medical Care by Doctors at US Border. Democrats Use This Tragedy to Criticize Trumps’s Immigration Policy.

Felipe Gomez Alonzo, Youtube
An 8-year-old boy from Guatemala, Felipe Gomez Alonzo, died on Christmas Eve while he and his father were in custody of US Customs and Border Protection. The child was examined by doctors but died in spite of receiving medications. It is reported that the boy’s father told US officials that the child was feeling better after receiving treatment and he declined further medical attention for his son. President Trump’s opponents have seized on this tragedy to attack his immigration policies. -GEG

YALAMBOJOCH, Guatemala (Reuters) – Between heavy sobs, Catarina Alonzo explained that when her husband left Guatemala to try to reach the United States, they hoped taking their 8-year-old son would make it easier for the pair to get in. Instead, the boy fell ill and died.

Detained on the U.S. border, Felipe Gomez Alonzo died late on Christmas Eve in a New Mexico hospital a few weeks after setting off with his father, becoming the second Guatemalan child to die this month while in U.S. custody.

The two deaths have led to increased criticism of the Trump administration’s hardline stance on illegal immigration, as well as fresh scrutiny of why some migrants from Central America travel with children on the long, dangerous road north.

Speaking at her home in a mountainous region of western Guatemala, Catarina Alonzo said neighbors had told the family that taking a child would provide her husband with a way in.

“Lots of them have gone with children and managed to cross, even if they’re held for a month or two. But they always manage to get across easily,” she told Reuters in an interview.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has yet to give an official cause of death for the boy, prompting Democratic lawmakers to intensify calls for an investigation.

The Department of Homeland Security, which says that Felipe Gomez Alonzo and 7-year-old Jakelin Caal, who died on Dec. 8, were the first children to die in CBP custody in a decade, this week said it would step up medical checks of migrant children to try to prevent any more deaths.

Alonzo, an indigenous Maya and native speaker of Chuj, has little Spanish and communicated through a translator. Wearing a sweatshirt and a purple dress, she spoke outside her hut in Yalambojoch, a village of about 1,000 people near the Mexican border.

She related how her son and his father, Agustin, an agricultural worker, had left in early December to find work in the United States to pay off debts. The two also hoped the boy would get a better education in the United States, she said.

Still, Alonzo said her husband had doubts and at one point decided he did not want to take the boy. But that upset the boy, so they resolved he should go.

Alonzo’s sobs could be heard for minutes outside the house before she came out to be interviewed. Afterwards she went back inside to a tiny altar she had adorned with three photos of the boy that a local school teacher had printed out for her.

The altar stood to one side of a room with cement walls that serves as a bedroom and living area for Alonzo and her three surviving children. Adjoining it was a kitchen with a dirt floor and wooden walls.

Her husband remains in U.S. custody.

“NOW OR NEVER”

Marta Larra, a spokeswoman for Guatemala’s Foreign Ministry, said smugglers known as “coyotes” often encourage migrants to take children as a form of “visa.” Many coyotes, she noted, are trusted by migrant families, so their word carries weight.

But Lucas Perez, the mayor of Yalambojoch, said some coyotes are only interested in ripping off people. Still, for many migrants trying to cross the U.S. border, taking a child along was the “only option,” he told Reuters.

Describing migration from the area as “constant,” Perez estimated about 200 people from the tiny village live in the United States.

Agustin Gomez, the boy’s father, has two brothers in the United States he hoped to meet, his wife said.

Read full article here…

 

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MJ Raichyk
MJ Raichyk
5 years ago

I guess it’s time to remind the readers that back in the day — in the post WW1 days many people scrimped and saved to try to get a way to immigrate LEGALLY to the USA — land with streets paved in gold. In those countries that distrusted their own currency, they stashed their savings away in deutsch marks and when the germans suffered hyperinflation, all their dreams of immigrating went up in a blink of an eye, and suicides were frequent among the tragically disappointed. That’s life when you favor a losing bet with all your eggs in one… Read more »

Celeste
Celeste
5 years ago

I feel bad that two children have died, but nobody in this country asked them to come here, and the fact that the parents brought children does not obligate the United States to accept them. Nobody can assure anyone that those children would have lived if they had been allowed into the country. People die in hospitals all the time. They most likely would not have died, had they stayed home, as the trip itself was a hardship on the child’s body, and exposed them to diseases of other travelers. Our immigration policies cannot be based on the immigrant’s needs.… Read more »