Grim gut check at the Southern border - Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria

Echo editorial from Texas by Juan Castillo published in the Austin American Statesman newspaper

The image is haunting and heartwrenching: 

A father and his 23-month-old daughter lying lifeless, face down in the murky water on the bank of the Rio Grande near Brownsville, their heads joined together, hers tucked inside his T-shirt, her tiny arm wrapped around his neck in their final moments alive.

Taken by a Mexican journalist after the bodies of Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria were found, the photograph was distributed by The Associated Press and was shared widely on social media. Perhaps you’ve seen it. Perhaps it stirred your anguish and your outrage. It should. I know it did mine, for it captures the desperation of migrants who risk their lives to try to enter our country in pursuit of better lives. Yet, the journeys end tragically for many as Americans point fingers in a shameful blame game that’s produced no solutions on border policy.

Of course, we’ve known for years that thousands of people lose their lives trying to get here − along the Rio Grande, in the vast desert of Arizona, in the thick, choking brush of South Texas. We know this because journalists have written millions of words about this. I’m one of them; I’ve been reporting on immigration and border policy for more than 15 years and I’ve been in those places.

But a searing image like the one of Oscar Martínez and little Valeria registers on an entirely different level. Words, however powerful they might be, can be ignored or manipulated. Spin becomes sport, and partisans take to Twitter to vilify each other. Words can produce an insulating distance, too. “That’s tragic, but it’s not my tragedy.”

But an image stirs our emotions on the deepest level. The still frame of Oscar and Valeria jolts us with its specificity, defying distance and filters, leaving us to process it and its aching sadness. We contemplate the details, like how Oscar wrapped Valeria inside his T-shirt to keep her close before the water pulled them under. We try to fathom the depth of desperation that drives parents to risk everything to improve their children’s lives. We feel a connection because we, too, would do anything for our children. We look inside our deepest selves and ask, would we be brave enough to flee hunger or violence or persecution and trek hundreds of miles by foot on a journey we know is fraught with danger? That is the choice many Central American migrants face.

The image defies spin, too. Oscar and Valeria don’t look like the violent criminals the president repeatedly claims are crossing the border. (“Animals,” he’s called them.) No, they look much like us, father and daughter, people worthy of our compassion.

Predictably, some will look at the photograph through the prism of their views on illegal immigration −“It’s their fault.” “The father shouldn’t have put his daughter in that position.” There’s a luxury in saying that if you and your family don’t fear for your very survival, as many migrants do. Under the law they have a right to seek asylum in this country. That’s what Oscar and Valeria had hoped to do.

According to reports, before trying to cross the river they had been waiting for two months on the Mexican side to present their asylum claims, under a Trump administration policy called “metering” that limits the number of people allowed to apply for asylum at U.S. border crossings. Denise Gilman, a law professor and director of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas, recently described to me the effects of the policy: chaotic scenes in which hundreds wait for weeks to present their claims, sleeping outdoors and under overpasses near the international bridge.

The deaths of Oscar and Valeria remind us of what we know and cannot forget: Our border policies have consequences. Migrant children have died in U.S. custody. Under a previous Trump administration policy, children were separated from their parents, some shipped off to other states. The government doesn’t know how many children are still separated. Under another policy, children are being held for long periods under appalling conditions in detention facilities, sleeping on concrete floors behind fenced-in enclosures, without access to the barest necessities like toothbrushes or soap, showers or enough food.

Some, including the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, have criticized use of the photograph of Oscar and Valeria on social media as exploitative and dehumanizing. I’m a longtime member of NAHJ and president of the organization’s Austin chapter, but I disagree, though I respect the opinion. My own is that the image is a gut-check on our humanity. As difficult as it is to see, we cannot and should not turn away. If we become numb to this, we risk losing our soul.

Castillo is the Opinion Page editor. He can be reached at jcastillo@statesman.com.