CNN political analyst Ana Navarro sounded off Wednesday night on the circumstances surrounding an 11-year-old Texas girl’s death by suicide, which her mother is attributing to extreme bullying by middle school peers who relentlessly threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on her family.
“This is happening all over America because of what has been unleashed, because of the portrayal of Latinos in particular, and immigrants as criminals and as bad people,” Navarro said Wednesday.
The comments came as a panel on CNN’s “NewsNight” discussed the girl’s Feb. 8 death, less than three weeks after President Donald Trump swept back into the White House and began to deliver on his long-promised mass deportations and large-scale immigration raids.
“There are kids being bullied,” Navarro, a co-host on "The View," told the CNN panel. “There are kids being targeted, and there are kids who are terrified that their parents – U.S. citizen kids terrified today – that their parents are going to be taken away, that they're going to go home, and the home is going to be empty. And so that is what has been unleashed on America."
Maria Santana, a CNN en Español anchor and correspondent, said the incident is still under investigation by both the girl’s middle school and police in Gainesville, Texas, about 70 miles north of downtown Dallas.
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“The worst part about it is that she says that she didn't even know that this was happening,” Santana said of the 11-year-old’s mother, who spoke to the cable news network. Santana added that while the girl was apparently receiving counseling at school, officials at Gainesville Intermediate School did not inform her until after she took her life.
“She's saying, you know, ‘maybe I could have done something. I didn’t notice any signs in my daughter that she was going through this situation,’” the correspondent added. “And that's what's even more heartbreaking about this story, there was a funeral for her today where even her schoolmates showed up, and she was just remembered as a happy, joyous girl.”
After a couple of minutes of the show’s other panelists taking their turn to gently weigh in on the nation’s immigration debate, Navarro jumped back in to take another swipe at Trump.
“No other president has relished in the cruelty and been as vocal about it,” Navarro said. “There's always been a level of compassion shown – Republicans and Democrats.”
She continued: “Donald Trump is showing absolutely no compassion. He is showing no distinction. He is relishing in the cruelty, as do the people that he has delegated to do this. And part of it is precisely with the purpose of instilling fear in the immigrant community so that they leave of their own accord.”
