A viral photo of a man and his daughter floating face down on the edge of the Rio Grande River captured the attention of Americans this week.
Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his almost-2-year-old, Valeria, drowned during their attempt to cross into the United States.
From Vox:
The backstory behind these photos, as reported by Julia De Luc in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, is that Oscar and his wife Tania Vanessa Ávalos were attempting to enter the United States from their native El Salvador to exercise their legal right to seek asylum. They were being held in a migrant camp on the Mexican side of the border, a camp that didn’t have enough food while temperatures soared to more than 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
So they decided to cross the Rio Grande on their own, without permission. At first, Oscar and Valeria made it across. But when Oscar went back in the water to help Tania cross, Valeria — too young to understand what was happening — jumped back in as well. Oscar swam back in to get his daughter, but the current took them both away. Tania could do nothing but watch.
The country is grappling with the conditions for migrants held in American custody at the border, amid administrative turnover at Customs and Border Protection and intense scrutiny over the treatment of unaccompanied children that arrive at the border.
About 100 children were returned this week to a border facility in Clint, Texas. Lawyers and activists had previously criticized the site because children there were “hungry, crying and unwashed,” according to The New York Times. About 2,000 children are in Border Patrol custody every day, and some are held for far longer than the 72-hour legal limit.
We talk with a journalist stationed at the border about what he’s seeing.
GUESTS
Michel Marizco, Senior editor, KJZZ radio’s Fronteras Desk; @borderreporter
For more, visit https://the1a.org.
© 2019 WAMU 88.5 – American University Radio.
Copyright 2019 WAMU 88.5
