What We Are Doing at the Border Is Unspeakable

By Charles Pierce, Esquire

24 May 19

The Trump administration* has admitted six migrant children have died so far. Should we trust that number?

t's May, right? I checked the calendar on my phone, and the one on my laptop, and the one I got at Christmas from the nice people at Amnesty International. I checked the newspaper. I thought about calling the National Observatory to make sure, but that sounded excessive. Finally, I checked with CBS News. So, it's May, right?

I mean, just so we're all on the same page here.

Mark Weber, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in a statement to CBS News that the girl had a history of congenital heart defects. Weber said when she entered the care of an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) facility in San Antonio, Texas, on March 4, 2018, she was in a "medically fragile" state.

"Following a surgical procedure, complications left the child in a comatose state. She was transported to a nursing facility in Phoenix, Arizona for palliative care in May after release from a San Antonio hospital," Weber said. "On September 26, she was transferred to an Omaha, Neb., nursing facility to be closer to her family. On September 29, the child was transported to Children's Hospital of Omaha where she passed due to fever and respiratory distress."

This happened in September. This happened last year. And we found out about it at the end of May. This year.

We are operating what can at best be called the 21st century equivalent of the relocation facilities into which Japanese-Americans were forced during World War II. What they can be called at worst is unspeakable. And we are operating them full of sick, frightened, and exhausted children whose parents are god knows where and who, day after day, wake up every morning and look at their keepers through cage-wire, like zoo animals. And some of them are dying there. Six of them have died officially. They are the children whom this policy has killed that the architects of this policy will cop to—eight months later, of course.

In an interview with CBS News Wednesday, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, accused the administration of concealing the girl's death. "I have not seen any indication that the Trump administration disclosed the death of this young girl to the public or even to Congress," Castro said. "And if that's the case, they covered up her death for eight months, even though we were actively asking the question about whether any child had died or been seriously injured. We began asking that question last fall."

Castro, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said he is going to demand more information from the government about the girl. "We're going to make immediate inquires to HHS to find out what happen to this young girl," Castro said.

It's May. Summer is coming. Even to the desert, it's coming.