Ken Cuccinelli, head of citizenship service, blames migrant father for drowning deaths captured in photo

Ken Cuccinelli, the acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said on CNN on Thursday night that a widely circulated photograph of a migrant father and his 23-month-old daughter who drowned on the banks of the Rio Grande was tragic, but that it was the father’s fault they died — and not the fault of U.S. asylum policy requiring migrants to wait in Mexico.

Cuccinelli, an immigration hard-liner nominated this month by President Trump to lead the federal agency that oversees legal immigration, including asylum, made the case while speaking on “Erin Burnett OutFront.”The news anchor asked whether Cuccinelli believed the graphic photo could be compared to the 2015 photo of the 3-year-old Syrian boy who had washed up on a beach, an image that had turned the world’s attention to the anguish confronting refugees trying to reach Europe. Would the photo of this father and daughter become a symbol of the Trump administration’s policies on the border? Burnett asked.

Cuccinelli said no, “in fact the opposite.”

View the complete June 28 article by Megan Flynn on The Washington Post website here.

Don’t remember much about Mr. Cuccinelli?  More info here.