The Hispanic Caucus of the House of Representatives blamed the Trump administration for the deaths. But in a report on the policy that came out last fall, Homeland Security's inspector general said, 'While the stated intentions behind metering may be reasonable, the practice may have unintended consequences.'Ĭiting interviews with Border Patrol officers and supervisors, the inspector general's office said it found 'evidence that limiting the volume of asylum-seekers entering at ports of entry leads some aliens who would otherwise seek legal entry into the United States to cross the border illegally.' agency says the practice of metering targets health and safety hazards. Customs and Border Protection policy of 'metering,' which is meant to manage the flow of migrants by blocking entry if no space is available in CBP's processing facilities. at legal border crossings often face long waits due to the U.S. southern border - with nearly 100 of those deaths reported in the Rio Grande Valley, according to the Border Patrol. In the most recent fiscal year, there were 283 deaths across the U.S. In the meantime, we will do as much as we can. 'Someday we will finish building a country where migration is an option and not an obligation. 'Someday we will finish building a country where these things do not happen,' Bukele said. border without going through legal channels. Both the president and Hill also urged Salvadorans not to try to cross the U.S. Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele granted the request, telling Foreign Affairs Minister Alexandra Hill to make arrangements and give the family financial support. 'We are united to pain by this irreparable loss,' the Salvadoran president's office said of the tragedy, after Ramirez's cousin asked for the government's help in bringing the bodies back home. But as The Associated Press reports, local officials had recently warned that the river poses a perilous threat, especially because it has been coursing with water that was released from dams to supply irrigation projects. The family had attempted to cross at a relatively narrow section of the river. The newspaper cited Ávalos' comments to government officials. The New York Times, meanwhile, says the family had entered the river together and that Ávalos swam back to the Mexican side, where she watched the water sweep away her husband and daughter. Their bodies were found Monday morning, about 550 yards from where they tried to cross, La Jornada reported.

Ávalos said her husband was able to reach the little girl but wasn't able to make it back to the shore. As in those earlier cases, it also shows the devastating effect strife and desperation often inflict on children and families. In the same way those images focused the world's attention on the humanitarian crisis in Syria and Turkey, the intense image from the Rio Grande comes as a stark reminder of the human toll of the immigration crisis. The shocking and unsettling image has drawn comparisons to other powerful photos, of the death of Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned in 2015 as his family tried to reach sanctuary in Greece, and of Omran Daqneesh, who was 5 when he was wounded in an airstrike in Aleppo. This photograph was first published in the Mexican newspaper La Jornada.

They drowned while trying to cross the river to Brownsville, Texas. The bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his nearly 2-year-old daughter, Valeria, lie on the bank of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico, where they were found Monday morning. Ramírez's wife, Tania Vanessa Ávalos, says she watched from the shore as her husband and daughter were pulled away by a strong river current near the border crossing between Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas. Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 25, died as he tried to bring his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, to safety and a new life in the U.S. has become a new flashpoint in the border crisis, after a photographer captured a haunting image that shows the pair lying facedown, washed onto the banks of the Rio Grande. The desperate and tragic plight of a father and daughter who drowned while trying to cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. The drowned bodies of her son and granddaughter were found Monday morning on the banks of the Rio Grande.Įditor's note : This story contains images that some readers may find disturbing. Rosa Ramírez cries as she looks at photos of her son Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, 25, and granddaughter Valeria, nearly 2, while speaking to journalists at her home in San Martín, El Salvador, on Tuesday.

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