Immigrants

Farron Cousins, host of the Ring of Fire YouTube channel, recently commented on the poor taste shown by Fox news host Brian Kilmeade when he (Kilmeade) commented on the deaths of 13 people killed in the collison in California between a Ford Expedition and a gravel truck. The people killed had apparently just entered the U.S. illegally, and Kilmeade seemed to think this deadly event was therefore worthy of humor. If they had been been American citizens their deaths would have been a tragedy, but because they were undocumented immigrants, they got their "just desserts." That is the gist of what I can interpret from Kilmeade's remarks.

Cousins goes on to point out that we know nothing about the people who died. They may have been have been victims of human trafficking, for all we know. They may have been trying to join family already in the U.S. — in fact, some of them definitely were doing that. I don't know much about the victims of this crash, but I know a little bit about two of the victims.

This is Yesenia Magali Melendrez Cardona. She was born in Guatemala. She was 23 years old. She lived in a village ravaged by Covid-19 where there were no jobs and the streets were unsafe to walk at night. Yesenia was in her fourth year at the University of San Carlos — where she was studying to be a lawyer — when she and her mother decided to leave. The young woman was being harassed and threatened, according to her uncle, Rudy Dominguez. Her father lived in America and she was trying to reach him.

This is Yesenia and her mother Verlyn Cardona who was also in the Expeditiion and was knocked out by the collision. When she awakened, her daughter Yesinia was lying on her, dead. Verlyn suffered a severe blow to her head that caused a cerebral hemorrhage. She’s since been released from the hospital.

So we have a young woman who was in her fourth year of study to be a lawyer, trying to escape from a situation where her life was at risk every day. What would you do if you were in that same situation? Would you have the courage to risk your life for a better life?

Yet a certain Fox News host seems to think it's funny that these immigrants forfeited their lives trying to reach a land where they could breathe freely. I think mocking their deaths is disgusting, and I hope that before the end of his life, Kilmeade and those who think like him will find a little bit of compassion in their hearts for the plight of their fellow humans who made the unforgivable mistake of being born in a third-world country and of wanting to have a better life. After all, it's the same plight that drove his ancestors to these shores.