The media’s exploitation of this photograph shames the West

The deaths of El Salvadorian migrants Oscar Ramirez and his 23-month-old daughter Valeria are, it goes without saying, a horrible tragedy. But is the photo of their lifeless bodies, washed up on the shores of the Rio Grande, really a ‘picture that shames America’ as, for example, the Evening Standard put it yesterday? Whatever you think of Donald Trump’s wall or his immigration policy in general, there is very little the US could have done to prevent their deaths. They died crossing a river, before they had even reached US soil. They cannot be claimed to be refugees who made the journey in desperation – while the standard of living in El Salvador is lousy compared with the US, their lives do not appear to have been in danger at home. And in any case, they were crossing from Mexico, having already successfully left their homeland.