On Thursday and Friday, CNN and MSNBC both linked the tragic suicide of a Hispanic child in Texas to the Donald Trump administration's recent push to deport illegal immigrants. These networks would never, ever blame a suicide on anything the Democrats said or did. But they will reflexively echo leftists claiming Trump's "deadly anti-immigrant hate" kills little girls.
On Friday evening, MSNBC host Joy Reid had contributor Maria Teresa Kumar as a guest on The ReidOut to blame Trump for the death of 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, possibly because she had recently been a victim of bullying.
After recalling some of the White House's recent statements about the deportation push by ICE, Reid set up the discussion:
But amid the cruel trolling from the highest and apparently now lowest office in the land, there's a story that shows the tragic consequences of the toxic environment and rhetoric toward immigrants that's taking hold in Trump and Elon's America. Little 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza -- her father called her a "sweet, happy girl" -- took her own life this month, according to her parents, and Gainesville, Texas, police. According to her family, little Jocelynn sought her school's guidance counselor two weeks prior to her death. She reported harassment on the school bus by one or two students over her parents' immigration status.
Reid showed a clip of Jocelynn's father and noted that she "was scared amid rumors that ICE agents would detain him," and then brought aboard Kumar. The MSNBC contributor immediately started blaming President Trump:
This is something we saw sadly into the first Trump administration is the level of bullying that happens amongst school children among communities to anyone that is brown. We don't know the actual status of Jocelynn's parents, but that misses the point. There was systematic failure up and down from that tweet that you showed from the White House basically denigrating the people that are -- that may be undocumented -- down to the school that did not notify the mother and the father that Jocelyn had been bullied and that she had sought help.
Kumar went on the recall discussions with guidance counselors who reported widespread worry from children of immigrants during Trump's first administration.
Reid went on to accuse the White House of "lying" about prioritizing the deportation of criminal aliens even though officials like border czar Tom Homan have openly told the public that, although ICE would put focus on tracking down felons, other illegal aliens would also be arrested if they are found in the same building with ICE's main targets.
On Thursday, CNN ran different versions of reporting by correspondent Ed Lavandera about Carranza's suicide. In a piece aired during The Lead, he tied in President Trump: "Multiple parents have told CNN that, in the days after President Donald Trump's inauguration, as news of ICE raids spread across the country, immigration chatter and taunting spread through the school."
MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart also covered the story on his show on Friday morning.
Transcripts follow:
The Lead
February 20, 2025
5:30 p.m. Eastern
JAKE TAPPER: In our "National Lead," a tragedy -- 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza died by suicide after her mother says she was bullied at school by a classmate with threats to have her family deported. Her death is now being investigated by the Texas school. CNN's Ed Lavandera spoke with Jocelynn's mother.
ED LAVANDERA: These are the videos Jocelynn Carranza's mother can't stop watching -- a happy young girl playing and laughing. These were the days before Marbella Carranza got the call that her 11-year-old daughter was being rushed to the hospital. Marbella says, in that moment, she felt the world crashing down on her. "Her death," she says, "has left her broken and searching for why this happened to Jocelynn."
Medical teams tried to save her life, but she died five days later. Marbella says, several days after her daughter's death, a school official told her that Jocelynn was bullied by a classmate at the Gainesville, Texas, Intermediate School. (translating for Marbella Carranza) Marbella says that another student was traumatizing her daughter, saying that because her parents were immigrants that they were going to be deported, and that she was going to be left alone. And the question she has is whether she took her life because she was afraid of being alone or if someone had told her to do that.
Marbella says Jocelynn was born in the United States. Multiple parents have told CNN that, in the days after President Donald Trump's inauguration, as news of ICE raids spread across the country, immigration chatter and taunting spread through the school. Jessi Noble says her daughter came home distraught days before Jocelynn took her life.
JESSI NOBLE, PARENT IN GAINESVILLE, TEXAS: People had been telling her friends that were Hispanic they were getting deported, that ICE was coming for them, and she was just terrified.
LAVANDERA: Were you surprised to hear this kind of talk among 10, 11-year-olds?
NOBLE: Eleven-year-olds? Yeah, absolutely. It breaks my heart, and it scares me that our kids are being bullied and that our kids are afraid of being deported or their friends or their families being deported.
LAVANDERA: Parents say the chatter intensified. The school district sent a letter the week before Jocelynn's incident explaining the protocols immigration officers must follow to access students. The letter said the school was "committed to supporting you through this uncertain time." Jocelynn was one of Genessis Amal's favorite friends.
GENESSIS AMAL, GAINESVILLE, TEXAS, STUDENT: When I heard that she was gone, I -- I don't know, it just shattered my heart. It hurt me really bad.
LAVANDERA: Hundreds of people turned out for Jocelynn Carranza's funeral service on Wednesday.
AMAL: It makes me feel sad because she didn't know how much people actually loved her before she passed away.
LAVANDERA: Jake, we reached out to the Gainesville school district. They say they are not able to comment because of privacy laws on specific student cases, but that they take allegations of bullying seriously. Jake?
(...)
MSNBC's The ReidOut
February 21, 2025
7:33 p.m. Eastern
JOY REID: But amid the cruel trolling from the highest and apparently now lowest office in the land, there's a story that shows the tragic consequences of the toxic environment and rhetoric toward immigrants that's taking hold in Trump and Elon's America. Little 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza -- her father called her a "sweet, happy girl" -- took her own life this month, according to her parents, and Gainesville, Texas, police. According to her family, little Jocelynn sought her school's guidance counselor two weeks prior to her death. She reported harassment on the school bus by one or two students over her parents' immigration status. Jocelynn's dad spoke with NBC's Dallas station.
ERNESTO ALONZO ROJO, FATHER OF JOCELYNN ROJO CARRANZA: What I have known now, Jocelynn go to -- talking about two weeks insistent, couple of times, to tell -- somebody telling immigration "going to come for your dad and for your mamma because I know your mom is Mexican and your dad, too." And it's hard. It's hard to assimilate all this.
REID: He also said Jocelynn was scared amid rumors that ICE agents would detain him. ... The Gainesville police say an investigation is ongoing. The police are investigating Jocelynn's death, and the school district is investigating the allegations of bullying.
Joining me now is Maria Teresa Kumar -- NBC contributor and president and CEO of Voto Latino. And, MTK, my friend, I mean, if this was a young person killed by an undocumented immigrant, this is all the right would be talking about. I've seen a few people sent me Jocelynn's story. It is not being blared all over the media on the other side, but it should be. I mean, the bullying atmosphere we're seeing -- and LULAC released a statement -- I'll just put it up on the screen so people can read it. But this is horrific. It's the worst-case scenario.
MARIA TERESA KUMAR, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, this is the thing, Joy. This is something we saw sadly into the first Trump administration is the level of bullying that happens amongst school children among communities to anyone that is brown. We don't know the actual status of Jocelynn's parents, but that misses the point. There was systematic failure up and down from that tweet that you showed from the White House basically denigrating the people that are -- that may be undocumented -- down to the school that did not notify the mother and the father that Jocelyn had been bullied and that she had sought help. ... So there are multiple levels of failure.
But we do need to take a step back and say, "What is the humanity when we allow our communities to basically, you know, absorb this hate coming out of the White House and not act accordingly?" And I do believe that unfortunately what happened with Jocelynn really allows us to have a conversation as parents in this moment, making sure that we are telling our children to be kind. I can tell you that, in 2019, I went and spoke to Dallas to over 3,000 student counselors, and one of the things they told me was that the number one issue that they started seeing among three-year-old Latinos -- three-year-old Latinos -- was anxiety and depression because of what they were hearing their parents' possibility of having to be deported. I cannot imagine the mental health of these children living under this administration. And it's going to take us adults to make sure that we're sheltering them to the best of our ability.
REID: Yeah, I mean, they just removed Haitian and Venezuelan Americans -- TPS. There are, you know, children of immigrants all over the country are terrified. And, as LULAC said, "No child should ever feel so isolated -- so tormented that they believe their only escape is to take their own life." This is -- the administration is lying. The data that's -- the real data -- actual data shows that the administration is not arresting people who are primarily criminals. Only 41 percent of the 1,800 people that they've arrested fall into that category.