No one in U.S. forces a migrant to cross the Rio Grande River

To The Daily Sun,

Your recent editorial excerpt from The San Francisco Chronicle (June 28), accompanied by an editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich, excludes the bitter truth that migrant children have been dying at a rate of almost one per day since 2014, according to a report by the International Organization for Migration and reported by the New York Post.

Although the death of any child is a tragedy regardless of the circumstances, the narrative that many seem to cling to is that what is happening on our southern border is the fault of the current administration. As noted in the report, this problem existed before Donald Trump took the oath of office after being elected president of the United States of America.

While the conditions in El Salvador may have been intolerable, the father of that child made the choice to cross the Rio Grande. As far as I know, no one on this side of the border forced them to do that, in spite of the assertion in the closing lines of that unsigned editorial excerpt that our policies "...led them to the river."

Tim Smith

Laconia