On Thursday's The Lead show, CNN ran a report by correspondent Ed Lavandera in which he connected the tragic suicide of a Hispanic child in Texas to the recent deportation push by the Donald Trump administration.
The Lead
February 20, 2025
5:30 p.m. Eastern
JAKE TAPPER: In our "National Lead," a tragedy -- 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza died by suicide after her mother says she was bullied at school by a classmate with threats to have her family deported. Her death is now being investigated by the Texas school. CNN's Ed Lavandera spoke with Jocelynn's mother.
ED LAVANDERA: These are the videos Jocelynn Carranza's mother can't stop watching -- a happy young girl playing and laughing. These were the days before Marbella Carranza got the call that her 11-year-old daughter was being rushed to the hospital. Marbella says, in that moment, she felt the world crashing down on her. "Her death," she says, "has left her broken and searching for why this happened to Jocelynn."
Medical teams tried to save her life, but she died five days later. Marbella says, several days after her daughter's death, a school official told her that Jocelynn was bullied by a classmate at the Gainesville, Texas, Intermediate School. (translating for Marbella Carranza) Marbella says that another student was traumatizing her daughter, saying that because her parents were immigrants that they were going to be deported, and that she was going to be left alone. And the question she has is whether she took her life because she was afraid of being alone or if someone had told her to do that.
Marbella says Jocelynn was born in the United States. Multiple parents have told CNN that, in the days after President Donald Trump's inauguration, as news of ICE raids spread across the country, immigration chatter and taunting spread through the school. Jessi Noble says her daughter came home distraught days before Jocelynn took her life.
JESSI NOBLE, PARENT IN GAINESVILLE, TEXAS: People had been telling her friends that were Hispanic they were getting deported, that ICE was coming for them, and she was just terrified.
LAVANDERA: Were you surprised to hear this kind of talk among 10, 11-year-olds?
NOBLE: Eleven-year-olds? Yeah, absolutely. It breaks my heart, and it scares me that our kids are being bullied and that our kids are afraid of being deported or their friends or their families being deported.
LAVANDERA: Parents say the chatter intensified. The school district sent a letter the week before Jocelynn's incident explaining the protocols immigration officers must follow to access students. The letter said the school was "committed to supporting you through this uncertain time." Jocelynn was one of Genessis Amal's favorite friends.
GENESSIS AMAL, GAINESVILLE, TEXAS, STUDENT: When I heard that she was gone, I -- I don't know, it just shattered my heart. It hurt me really bad.
LAVANDERA: Hundreds of people turned out for Jocelynn Carranza's funeral service on Wednesday.
AMAL: It makes me feel sad because she didn't know how much people actually loved her before she passed away.
LAVANDERA: Jake, we reached out to the Gainesville school district. They say they are not able to comment because of privacy laws on specific student cases, but that they take allegations of bullying seriously. Jake?
