A three-year-old migrant girl who showed signs of distress during a Greg Abbott-demanded bus journey from Texas to Chicago died during a GOP-sponsored publicity stunt where the Texas Republican governor ships migrants to cities around the country to “own the libs,” the Texas Tribune reports.
The child was with family members, who advised the bus driver of the child’s difficulties. The bus pulled over and waited for an ambulance as it neared Chicago, but the child died before the ambulance could reach a hospital. A spokesman for the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which is producing Abbott’s political stunt, shunned all blame, saying the migrants were screened by federal immigration officials before boarding the bus–Texas officials claim voluntarily because they signed a waiver, but many migrants don’t speak or read English, so the claim that they understood where they were going is dubious–and that the bus was stocked with food and water.