It’s hardly a surprise that the lies surrounding this administration’s racist immigration policy come straight from the top. The Associated Press now directly asserts that Trump “misrepresented” the death of a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who tried to enter the country last December with her father, and ended up dying of sepsis while in the custody of the Border Patrol. According to the AP, he essentially lied about it for the express purpose of deflecting blame from the cruelty of his own policies.
Worse still, he lied about it by blaming the girl’s father after mocking them both at a political rally.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is misrepresenting the circumstances of a 7-year-old migrant girl’s death as he seeks to steer any potential blame for it away from his administration.
Trump, after mockingly painting asylum seekers as a “con job” in a rally the previous night, asserted on Friday that Jakelin Caal Maquin was given no water by her father during their trek to a remote border area and that the dad acknowledged blame for his daughter’s death on Dec. 8. Those assertions are not supported by the record.
The girl's autopsy report, released on Friday, clearly showed she died of sepsis, a rapidly-progressing bacterial infection, less than two full days after being held in custody by Border Patrol agents.
The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s office said traces of streptococcus bacteria were found in Jakelin’s lungs, adrenal gland, liver, and spleen, and she experienced a “rapidly progressive infection” that led to the failure of multiple organs.
Neither the autopsy report, nor accounts at the time by Customs and Border Protection , spoke of dehydration. And through family lawyers, Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz said after his girl’s death that he made sure she had food and water as they traveled through Mexico.
The Border Patrol’s own examination also showed no medical problems when they arrested her. Their own statement on the girl’s death, issued last December, confirms that there was never any sign or evidence of “dehydration” when she was taken into custody and no suggestion whatsoever that her father had “deprived” her of any water. Trump had all these facts at his disposal on Friday.
But here’s what Trump told reporters on the very day Jakelin’s official autopsy was released:
TRUMP: “I think that it’s been very well stated that we’ve done a fantastic job. ... The father gave the child no water for a long period of time - he actually admitted blame.” — to reporters Friday.
This was one day after Trump held a rally this week in Michigan. Speaking to his usual audience of worshipful mutants, he doubled down on blaming these impoverished immigrants, and mocking their plight as a form of “entertainment.”
In his Michigan rally Thursday night, Trump entertained his supporters with an apocryphal story of a “heavyweight champion of the world” pleading a hardship case while seeking asylum. “It’s a big fat con job, folks. It’s a big fat con job.”
He said “you have people coming up here” who are coached by lawyers to “say the following phrase: ‘I am very afraid for my life. I am afraid for my life.’ OK.”
Daniel Dale is the Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star:
The disgrace that this man has brought to our country is truly unfathomable, and it isn’t even close to being over.