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The mother from the now-viral photograph showing a migrant family running from tear gas launched by U.S. authorities at members of the so-called “caravan” says that she thought her children were “going to die with me because of the gas we inhaled.”
A large number of asylum seekers were peacefully protesting their conditions and slow U.S. processing when a smaller number did try to cross the fence. Maria Meza, originally from Honduras, “said she didn’t try to cross and was only looking across the border with other members of the caravan when the tear gas was launched.”
“One of her daughters lost her sandals in the mud,” BuzzFeed continues. “She and her daughters couldn’t climb out of the concrete riverbed until a passing stranger pulled them up. Meza said one of her sons almost fainted from the tear gas, but recovered after she threw water on his face.”
On Monday, Donald Trump defended children in diapers choking on tear gas by making up a story that several Customs and Border Protection (CBP) “were very badly hurt” at the border. “Trump’s account contradicted U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan,” Politico reported.
The administration’s physical attack on families at the border comes on the heels of Trump’s despicable policy of separating families at the border, putting children in cages, and his effort to deport Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders. And he wants more money for dangerous detention facilities and a stupid border wall? Congress needs to deny this.
“We never thought they were going to fire these bombs where there were children,” Meza said according to Reuters, “because there were lots of children. It wasn’t right, they know we are human beings, the same as them.”