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AFP
WASHINGTON
A RAPE at a Washington area high school has drawn intense scrutiny as part of the immigration debate launched under President Trump, since the two alleged attackers are Latinos who entered the US illegally.
Under normal circumstances, a case like this would not make national headlines. But these are not normal times in America.
The attack feeds perfectly into the Trump narrative that the United States has porous borders and does not give priority to native-born Americans, and that unauthorized immigrants mean more and more violent crime.
Jose Montano, 17, and Henry Sanchez Milian, 18, are accused of brutally raping a 14-year-old classmate in a bathroom during school hours. They have been arrested and are in custody as they wait to go before a judge.
The rape took place last week at a public high school in Rockville, Maryland, a Washington suburb in Montgomery County, which is strongly pro-Democratic.
Seventy-six percent of the county's voters went with Hillary Clinton in the November election.
News reports say Sanchez Milian was born in Guatemala and in August 2016 crossed the Rio Grande separating Mexico from the US, as do many Latinos seeking to escape poverty and find a better life in the United States. He was picked up by border control agents.
