The Associated Press said Saturday that President Trump botched the facts of a 7-year-old migrant girl’s death.
An autopsy report released Friday revealed that Jakelin Caal Maquin, 7, died of a bacterial infection in December while detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in El Paso, Texas. The same day, Trump told reporters that the girl’s father admitted he was to blame in the girl’s death and had not given Maquin any water.
“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,” Trump said to reporters Friday.
But the Associated Press reported that Trump misrepresented the facts, saying that neither “the autopsy report, nor accounts at the time by Customs and Border Protection, spoke of dehydration.” Instead, the report states Trump is deflecting blame to protect his administration’s policies on handling migrants crossing the southern border, particularly women and small children. Those policies have been under intense scrutiny by congressional Democrats over the last year.
“An autopsy report released Friday found that Guatemalan girl died of a bacterial infection just more than a day after being apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol. 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,” the report stated.
Maquin’s father said at the time she had been given food and water, disputing officials’ assertion that dehydration had contributed to her death.
At a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., Friday, Trump called children’s deaths while in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody “a horrible situation. But Mexico could stop it.”
