Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, Texas girl kills self after ongoing bullying and abuse at the hands of classmate over her family’s immigration status and threats to report her to ICE amid the return of President Trump and his immigration deportation edict.
An 11-year-old Texas girl took her own life following relentless bullying from classmates, some of whom threatened to call U.S. immigration authorities to deport her Mexican born mother—who has since claimed never notified by school officials that her daughter had been ongoing subjected to abuse and torment over the family’s immigration status.
Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, a sixth-grader at Gainesville Intermediate School in Gainesville, 70 miles north of Dallas, died on February 8 in a Dallas hospital after spending five days in its intensive care unit, The Latin Times reported.
Children replicating the mores of society against vilified targets
‘I waited a whole week for a miracle that my daughter would be well, but unfortunately nothing could be done,’ the girl’s mother, Marbella Carranza, told Univision.
‘She was a happy girl. My daughter will always live for me, and I will always love her,’ Carranza told the outlet.
The 11 year old according to reports had been ongoing bullied by classmates over her family’s immigration status and threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Newsweek reported that some of Carranza’s tormentors taunted her about being abandoned if her parents were deported.
School officials tacitly conceded being aware Carranza being severely bullied, having sent the 11 year old to multiple weekly counseling sessions. Nevertheless, officials for reasons not immediately understood never notified the child’s mother, who claims only finding out about the abuse after her daughter’s hospitalization.
Noted wsws: ‘The children who committed the bullying, while exhibiting inexcusable behavior, are just that, children. They are extremely impressionable and vulnerable to the pressures of society and are emulating what they are seeing carried out at the highest level of the government and political establishment.’
Eleven-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza endured months of bullying about her family’s immigration status at her Dallas-area school before she took her own life.
As I said to @Acosta – Trump has created a culture of cruelty and meanness that is infecting American society and our… pic.twitter.com/vH2QoD1ug5
— Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) February 20, 2025
Anti immigrant demonization and scape goating
Carranza’s death comes amid increased anti-immigrant bigotry fueled by the return of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump to the White House. Trump—whose return to the power had relied on the nation’s exhaustion with DEI and woke policies and widening economic disparities between the haves and have nots, singled out illegals as the underlying dilemma, including falsely smearing migrants as pet-eating invaders and disease-spreading terrorists.
On his first day back in office, Trump made good on his promise to affect a mass deportation drive and to preempt ‘illegals’ trying to make their way crossing the border into the U.S.
In the weeks since, Trump has initiated directives which include sending some deportees to the notorious Guantánamo Bay naval base and prison in Cuba, along with sending deportees to a Panamanian jungle camp described as ‘primitive.’
On Monday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem introduced a video warning people who are in the United States without authorization to ‘self-deport and stay out.’ The ad—which is part of a campaign reportedly costing taxpayers $200 million—tells undocumented migrants to ‘leave now’ or ‘we will hunt you down.’
Trump’s policy would be impossible without the ongoing complicity of the Democrats and their role in promoting decades of promotion of anti-immigrant dogma. It is a widely known fact that the Obama administration deported more immigrants than any other administration to date, with the Biden administration taking second place.
MAGA anti-immigrant rhetoric
It’s in this backdrop advocates for immigrants, human rights have protested MAGA rhetoric singling out illegal immigration as the scourge of the nation’s collective misery and implied poverty and lack of opportunity (they’re wrong– it’s the old mantra of class warfare and exploitation by billionaire and entrenched oligarchic interests).
Ruth Delgado, the digital media manager at the immigration reform group America’s Voice, called Carranza’s death a “heartbreaking story,’ posting on social media, ‘Her story is one of the many real human consequences of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.’
A crowdfunding effort on GoFundMe set up on February 5 to help pay for hospital bills for the 11 year old has since raised over $42,762 amid widespread sympathy for Jocelynn and others who almost certainly will continue to face ongoing stigma in the backdrop of anti-immigrant rhetoric and demonization.
