5/6/2019 -
Sheriff David Clarke (Ret.) Townhall.cm
Recently there have been three news reports of children
dying in the U.S. while in custody of the U.S. Border Patrol. That phrase,
“while in custody of” is used to imply that the child would be alive today if
only the Border Patrol had let them illegally trespass without interruption. If
a child dies in a hospital, the media rarely claims that the child died “while
in the custody of” a hospital. It doesn’t have the same impact. Every media
outlet in America knows that a news story about the death of a child is
emotionally heartbreaking. Children are a vulnerable subset of the population
like the elderly and the disabled. Nearly every adult holds in their heart the
feeling that children need our protection.
Nevertheless the liberal media exploits the sensitivity we
have when hearing about the death of a child. In today’s political environment,
nothing is sacred. Politicizing the treatment of children of parents illegally
crossing into the country gets attention mainly—and only if—the left can
weaponize and hammer people who want secure borders, or support President Trump
and law enforcement like the Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs
Enforcement.
In the first news report a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died,
“after being taken into U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Protection,” the story
said. Her father dragged her on a 2000-mile journey from northern
Guatemala. Her father stated she was in good health during the screening
process. Her health deteriorated on a 90-minute bus ride to the Border Patrol
station. She was immediately transported to a hospital. An autopsy report indicated
that she died from sepsis, a bacteria found in her lungs, adrenal glands,
liver, and spleen. I am not a doctor, but I can safely presume that she had
that bacteria in her long before she hit the U.S. border. This is very sad, but
it isn’t the fault of U.S. border policy. It can be said that her father was
negligent in dragging her on that dangerous journey. Why is that fact not being
raised by the liberal media?
In the second death, an 8-year-old boy, again from Guatemala
died after being dragged by his father on a 2000-mile journey and illegal entry
into the U.S. The media made a point of indicating that Felipe Alonzo-Gomez was
the second child to die, “in Border Patrol custody.” The boy became ill and was
treated by medical personnel in the U.S. including being hospitalized several
times. The autopsy showed that his cause of death was from the flu. Doctors who
did not treat the boy were interviewed and said that he should have been
checked for the flu and wasn’t. They said it was preventable. Yeah, right.
Eighty thousand people died from influenza in the US in 2018 and another 56,000
in 2017 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Were those
preventable? Were the doctors negligible? Besides, that is a question of the
medical diagnosis of the doctors who treated him, not the Border Patrol. They
sought immediate medical attention for him. However, blaming doctors won’t help
politically here. Pinning this on the Border Patrol and President Trump is the
goal.
In the third case, a 16-year-old unaccompanied migrant died
after several days in intensive care at a children’s hospital in the United
States. Clinicians observed no health concerns when he arrived at a shelter. He
became ill the next day the story said and was taken to a hospital, treated and
released. He did not improve and was hospitalized again and later died. The
cause of death from the autopsy was that the 16-year-old died from a brain
tumor. Obviously that set in long before entering the US. The symptoms did too.
Why is the media not asking the father why treatment was not sought in his home
country? Yet, is anybody surprised the liberal media reflexively began their
predictable blame and smear tactics?
The liberal media labels these stories high profile. They
are only high profile because the media has weaponized these deaths to club the
Border Patrol and President Trump. There are no reports of neglect by Border
Patrol officials. It appears that all protocol was followed. These are
unfortunate and tragic incidents. These kids got better treatment “while in the
custody of” the Border Patrol than they did in their home country and along the
way on this dangerous journey to the U.S. The real question is why a parent—if
they were the actual parents—would subject their child to this dangerous trek
to our southern border.
There is another issue that the media conveniently leaves
out. Asylum laws dictate that a person fleeing danger in their country of
origin are to claim asylum in the first country they reach outside their own.
For Guatemalans and Hondurans that would be Nicaragua, El Salvador, Belize or
even Mexico, not the United States. President Trump has correctly labeled this
a humanitarian crisis that is not of our making. We can’t allow somebody else’s
problem to become our problem. These migrants illegally cross into the U.S.
It’s a violation of U.S. sovereignty. It is a domestic and national security
issue and a public health issue. It puts a strain on limited U.S. resources
such as public health facilities, schools, and our welfare system.
If the agenda-driven media correctly diagnosed this, they
would blame these deaths of children on the parents or at least on the U.S.
Congress, both parties, who refuse to fix this as each side is looking for
political leverage instead.
Sheriff David Clarke Jr. is former Sheriff of Milwaukee Co,
Wisconsin, President of AmericasSheriff LLC, Senior Advisor for America First,
author of the book Cop Under Fire: Beyond Hashtags of Race Crime and Politics
for a Better America. To learn more visit www.americassheriff.com
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