Impatience: the real cause of Oscar Ramirez’s and Valeria’s deaths

Although Democrat open borders advocates immorally enticed Oscar Ramirez to head for America, it was his own foolish impatience that killed him and his child.

Oscar Ramirez and Valeria Illegal Immigration Impatience Stupid Decision
Oscar Ramirez, by being foolishly impatient, killed his own child as surely as the person too impatient to wait for a train to pass kills everyone in his car.

I’m not going to include in my post the photo showing the bodies of Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his two-year-old daughter Valeria, lying dead in the Rio Grande. That poor little girl has already been exploited enough.

Democrats are blaming Trump for the deaths because he has refused to open the southern border to all comers. Republicans are blaming Democrats for enticing illegal immigrants into dangerous situations by rewarding illegal activity. Indeed, Republicans say that Democrat promises of preferences for people with children are specifically putting children at risk — whether the illegal aliens’ own children or those they purchased for the purpose.

Put ultimately, no matter the American policies, it’s the people seeking to enter our country illegally who are making the final decision about crossing illegally into America. In this case, decision that killed Valeria wasn’t Trump’s or the Democrats’. Instead, the horribly bad, truly foolish, death-dealing decision came from Oscar Ramirez — the child’s father.

First, understand that this journey wasn’t necessary. The family wasn’t escaping deadly persecution. They just wanted more money in their El Salvadoran lives (which is a perfectly rational desire):

Oscar worked at a Papa Johns pizza restaurant, where he was earning $350 a month.

They lived off his wage, limiting themselves to $10-a-day, because Tania had already quit her job as a cashier in a Chinese restaurant to care for Valeria, their only child.

The family lived with her mother in a housing complex in Altavista.

They were not fleeing violence, Tania’s mother has since said, but were in desperate search of a life where they could earn more.

Their plan was to spend a few years in America to save up enough money to eventually return to El Salvador and buy or build their own house.

Second, after just two months of waiting, Oscar got impatient with the legal process and decided to act:

After two months in southern Mexico with no prospect of entering the US legally, the family decided to make their way to the border to push their case forward.

It was that decision to cross the Rio Grande, a decision that was due solely to Oscar’s impatience, that led to his and his innocent child’s death. If you doubt me, let’s shift the decision-making to a different scenario that makes his sole responsibility obvious:

Imagine that Oscar, Tania, and Valeria want to board a ferry. They watch as it fills up but, because they’re at the back of the line and couldn’t buy preferential tickets, they realize that they’re going to miss this ferry and will have to wait to catch another. As they watch the ferry pull away from the dock, Oscar, fed up with the delay, announces, “Eff this fecal matter. We’re going to get on that ferry.”

He grabs his two-year-old daughter, jumps in the water and swims to the ferry. He deposits the frightened child on the deck and then — from her perspective — abandons her as he turns around to get his wife (who obviously can’t swim either, something he should have thought of). At this point, the toddler does a perfectly logical toddler thing: She chooses jumping into the water to being abandoned on a the ferry.

Then they drown.

If you read that story in the news, would you blame the ferry company? Would you blame the ticket desk that didn’t issue them a better ticket so they got on? Would you even blame the idiots on the ferry who kept hollering, “Come on. You can do it!”?

No. You’d blame the impatient father who did something stupid, killing himself and his child.

We see stories like this all the time. Let’s do a different scenario:

Oscar, Tania, and Valeria are driving across country because Oscar wants a better job. In the Midwest, they come to a train crossing. As they near, the bells ring, the lights blink, and the bar comes down. However, Oscar sees that it’s going to be a long train, one of those that might force them to wait for an hour or more before all the train cars pass by. He therefore announces, “Eff this fecal matter. We’re going to the other side now.”

Oscar guns the motor despite his child’s screams and his wife’s pleas for him to show some common sense. They make it halfway across the tracks before the tires get stuck and the car stops moving. As the train nears, Oscar manages to push his wife out of the car but can’t unbuckle the child safety seat in time. They die (see photo above for an example of how they die).

Other examples of impatient parenting decisions that lead to dead kids are people who jay-walk with kids in the face of oncoming traffic; people speeding on the freeway with their kids in the car because they want to get somewhere quickly; people who can’t wait for a boat to dock and jump vainly for land, drowning themselves and their kids. I could go on and on and on.

Every day, people kill their children through stupidity, especially through impatient stupidity. This case was no different, and wrapping it up in an immigration sob story doesn’t change it. Oscar, young, impatient, driven by poorly thought out impulses, killed his daughter. That he willingly sacrificed his own life in a belated effort to save her doesn’t change the core fact, which is that the fault for Valeria’s death lies with Oscar and Oscar alone.


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