Trump blames Democrats for dad, toddler who drowned crossing border

By: Bob F.

U.S. President Trump said Wednesday he hated to see the heart-wrenching photo of the dead Central American man and his young daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande while trying to reach the US — but then quickly blamed Democrats for the tragedy.

“I hate it, and it could stop immediately if the Democrats change the laws. And that father who was probably a wonderful guy with his daughter, things like that wouldn’t happen,” Trump said as he was leaving DC to attend the G20 in Japan.

He then described the perils that asylum seekers face trying to get to the US for a better life.

“That journey across that river is a dangerous journey. Going across the Rio Grande is very, very dangerous, depending on the time of year and the conditions and the rapidity of the water,” he continued.

“And we know that, we have many, many guards there, people go through the guards. If we had the right laws, that the Democrats are not letting us have, those people wouldn’t be coming up, they wouldn’t be trying,” Trump argued. “The asylum policy of the Democrats is responsible.”

While Trump blamed Democrats, the GOP did nothing to change asylum laws — which allow immigrants to ask for entry to the US on humanitarian and other grounds — when they controlled the executive and legislative branches of government for two years before the midterm elections.

House Democrats on Tuesday passed a bill that would provide $4.5 billion for humanitarian and other aid for migrants being held in camps at the border.

The bill would need to be negotiated by the Senate — and Trump has threatened to veto it, so its fate remains uncertain.

The Daily Mail reported Wednesday that the migrant father and his daughter died when the little girl jumped back in the water to follow him as he swam back to get his wife, 21-year-old Tania Vanessa Ávalos, after the child had been safely carried to the US side of the river.

Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez, 25, and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, died on Sunday after being swept away by the current.

They left El Salvador on April 3 and spent two months in a migrant camp in southern Mexico before they decided to take a bus to the border on Sunday in the hopes of speeding up their case.