During a congressional visit to a border facility in New Mexico this week, incoming Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) leader Joaquin Castro called on Customs and Border Protection (CBP) commissioner Kevin McAleenan to resign from his post following the tragic death of a seven-year-old girl in the agency’s custody. “If I were in charge,” Castro said, “I’d ask for his resignation.”
A delegation of House Democrats toured conditions inside the facility. No reporters were allowed to join them, and for a reason. “The only reason why this facility is still open as it is now is because these cameras can’t get in,” said Congress member Al Green, describing children “stacked” in cells. But it’s not just the shit conditions that are an issue, it’s the fact that McAleenan appeared to violate law when it came to Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin’s horrific death.
Castro “cited the fact that McAleenan purposefully did not disclose Caal’s death to Congress when he testified earlier in December,” Buzzfeed reports, supposedly because he was waiting to confirm the girl’s death with her mother. “Federal law requires Congress be notified within 24 hours of the death of an immigrant in CBP custody.”
In response to condemnation of Jakelin’s death, CBP has now issued “interim guidelines” that require the agency “to inform lawmakers within 24 hours of a death in CBP custody and to issue media statements an hour after that.” Basically, what they were already supposed to do. “Language in the 2018 House appropriations report directed CBP to tell lawmakers about any deaths within that time frame,” The Washington Post reports, “but the agency did not have a statutory requirement and had not formalized the policy until the interim guidelines this week in the wake of Caal’s death.”
What unleashed federal immigration agencies need is an overhaul and real oversight, and that includes personal accountability in the form of resignations. Castro, who saw first-hand the conditions that asylum seekers and others suffer under U.S. watch, believes McAleenan must go. “What I saw in these facilities is unbelievable and unconscionable,” said Congress member Al Green of Texas. “The ASPCA would not allow animals to be treated the way human beings are being treated.”