Homeland Security Secretary visits Yuma after death of migrant children
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #454545}p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #454545; min-height: 14.0px} Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen visited Yuma on the second day of a southwest tour to see migrant conditions at Border Patrol stations.
Her visit to Yuma follows the deaths of two migrant children from Guatemala in government custody.
The most recent was the death of 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Felipe was the second Guatemalan child to die in government custody in three weeks. A 7-year-old girl died in El Paso earlier this month.
Nielsen has called the deaths “deeply concerning and heartbreaking.”
As part of her trip, she visited El Paso, Texas on Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security said migrants will now receive more thorough initial health screenings as well as secondary screenings for every child in U.S. government custody.
Nielsen released a statement that said, “the system is clearly overwhelmed and we must work together to address this humanitarian crisis and protect vulnerable populations.” She has called on Congress to “act with urgency.”
Meantime, President Donald Trump placed the blame on Democrats on Twitter.
“Their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally,” he wrote.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1079082188665171971″,”author_name”:”Donald J. Trump”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Any deaths of children or others at the Border are strictly the fault of the Democrats and their pathetic immigration policies that allow people to make the long trek thinking they can enter our country illegally. They can’t. If we had a Wall, they wouldn’t even try! The two…..&#lt;/p&#gt;– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1079082188665171971?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;December 29, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
He also said children were “very sick before they were given over to Border Patrol.”
According to the Associated Press, U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat who serves part of Yuma County, said Nielsen’s visit to Yuma was “under the dark cloud of a Republican-induced government shutdown, the president’s threats to close the border and the tragic deaths of two children in DHS custody.”
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/RepRaulGrijalva/status/1079084716370857986″,”author_name”:”Raul M. Grijalva”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/RepRaulGrijalva”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Sec. Nielsen is in Yuma today, but no press tour will undo the disastrous policies of the Trump administration. Instead of visiting the border, she should just resign. &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/Jq9VU5Ckiv”&#gt;https://t.co/Jq9VU5Ckiv&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Raul M. Grijalva (@RepRaulGrijalva) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/RepRaulGrijalva/status/1079084716370857986?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;December 29, 2018&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
