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Jocelynn Rojo Carranza of Gainesville, TX, died on Saturday, Feb. 8, five days after she was rushed to a hospital, Univision 23 reported. She was a student at Gainesville Intermediate School, about an hour north of Dallas.
Her mother Marbella Carranza told Univision that students repeatedly taunted her daughter, saying her family would be deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"I waited a whole week for a miracle that my daughter would be well but unfortunately nothing could be done," Marbella said to Univision. "My daughter will always live for me and I will always love her."
Carranza also said an investigator told her that Jocelynn had been seeking counseling at school one to two times a week to report the harassment. The Gainesville Independent School District hasn't released a statement about her death as of Wednesday, Feb. 19.
On a GoFundMe page, Jocelynn's father Ernesto Alonso Rojo mourned the death of his "princess."
"This helplessness hurts my soul and it is not easy for me or for any of her relatives who were present in her life as a child," Rojo wrote. "Knowing that she is no longer with us breaks my heart into pieces."
The GoFundMe has raised more than $27,900 from at least 647 donations as of press time.
Jocelynn's death comes amid President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement and promises of mass deportations. Trump has ordered ICE to ignore its policy of not conducting raids in "sensitive locations" like schools, churches, hospitals, playgrounds, and domestic violence or homeless shelters.
ICE has recently carried out high-profile immigration arrests in several cities, including Newark, Philadelphia, and New York.
President Trump has claimed the goal of the deportation efforts is to remove violent criminals from the US. According to Axios, less than 0.5 percent of the 1.8 million cases in immigration courts during the 2023-24 fiscal year involved deportation orders for crimes other than illegally entering the country.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights has criticized the Trump administration's policies as cruel and causing children — regardless of immigration status — to live in fear.
"These abrupt changes have resulted in parents keeping their young students home from school in fear of ICE raids and children being afraid to go to school because they worry that their parents will be taken while they're in school," the nonprofit group said. "School should be a place where children can get their education and feel safe while doing so, but these policy changes jeopardize that."
According to the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), the Fourth and Fifth Amendments protect everyone in the US, no matter their legal status.
"ICE must have a warrant to enter or arrest people in a "private" location," NYIC said. "You have the right to remain silent. The Fourth Amendment protects areas where people have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" and ICE needs a judicial warrant (not just an administrative warrant) to enter those areas that are considered private."
The National Immigrant Justice Center has educational resources to remind people of their rights when confronted by ICE.
A celebration of life was held for Jocelynn on Tuesday, Feb. 18. Her funeral Mass was on the following day.
If you or someone you know is having a mental health crisis, you should call or text 988 immediately.
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