A 2-year-old migrant boy who crossed the U.S./Mexico border with his mother and was then held in federal immigration custody for several days died in a Texas hospital Tuesday night, the Guatemalan consul said, becoming the fourth Guatemalan child to die in the past six months after being taken into custody by U.S. officials.
The child crossed the border with his mom near the Paso del Norte International Bridge on April 3 and was in Customs and Border Protection custody for three days when “his mother alerted agents that he was sick,” The Washington Post reported. It’s unclear where the child and his mom had been held, but there have been numerous reports of newly detained families forced to sleep in open tents, on dirt and rocks for days, while they’re being processed.
The child was taken to a children’s hospital on April 6, where he was reportedly diagnosed with pneumonia. “On April 8, federal officials formally released the family from Border Protection custody with a ‘notice to appear’ in immigration court. The child remained hospitalized since, and died on Tuesday night.”
Nearly a year ago, another toddler, 19-month-old Mariee, died six weeks after becoming seriously ill in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. "After it became clear that Mariee was gravely ill,” her attorneys said, “ICE simply discharged mother and daughter.”
”CBP officials are required to notify Congress of a death in custody within 24 hours, and it was not immediately clear whether officials would do that when The Washington Post inquired about the death because the boy had been released from custody. Later, an official said they would notify lawmakers.”
The boy is now the fourth Guatemalan child to die after being taken into federal immigration custody. Sixteen-year-old Juan de León Gutiérrez died on April 30 after being sent to a Texas facility contracted by the federal government to detain migrant children. In December, Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin and Felipe Gomez Alonzo died after being taken into CBP custody. Innocent children keep dying on our watch, and the federal government seems to be doing nothing to stop it.
“We will never accept that children dying in detention are normal or acceptable,” The Border Network for Human Rights said in a statement. “Prior to this administration it was more than a decade since a migrant child had died in U.S. custody—now it has happened five times. This is an appalling pattern of immorality and inhumanity.”