The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) says in a new report that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) failed to provide consistent medical care to detained people at its facilities after a number of children horrifically died under the agency’s watch in beginning in late 2018. This was despite being given over $110 million in emergency funding by Congress.
Mirroring past reporting, the GAO also confirmed that border officials made a deliberate, inhumane decision to ignore a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation to give detained people flu vaccinations following the flu death of one of those children. “CBP decided not to implement a recommendation from CDC to offer influenza vaccines to individuals in custody but did not document how it arrived at this decision,” the report said.
The GAO found that while Congress gave CBP emergency funding “to enhance medical care and services for individuals in its custody” after Jakelin Ameí Rosmery Caal Maquin and Felipe Gómez Alonzo became the first children to die while in federal immigration custody in a decade in late 2018, investigators said the agency failed to consistently follow its own medical directives, leaving nearly 150 children to fall through the cracks during a one-week period alone.
“Our review of Border Patrol records from a one-week period in February 2020 found that 143 of 373 apprehended children under age 18 who were processed at Border Patrol stations without contracted medical providers did not receive a health interview or medical assessment referral at those stations,” the report said. “This included 116 children under age 13, and 27 children ages 13 through 17.”
Jakelin was seven when she died under border officials’ watch in December 2018. Felipe was eight when he died later that same month.
“CBP did not document how it weighed costs and benefits in deciding not to offer the influenza vaccine,” the GAO said, writing that CBP documents stated “that vaccinating apprehended individuals would pose operational, medical, legal, and logistical challenges.” About that: physicians with a humanitarian medical group basically begged Trump administration officials to let them give detained kids and adults flu shots for free, but were blocked.
CBP did, however, promote a vaccine program for its own workers. In a separate report last month, the GAO found CBP violated law by using the emergency funding Congress gave it to stop the deaths of people in its custody to instead support a vaccine program for its employees, as well as pay for a canine program, dirt bikes, and computer network upgrades.
The latest GAO report also said that while “CBP was directed to report deaths of individuals in its custody to Congress,” at least 11 in-custody deaths were not properly documented in the past several years. “GAO’s review of CBP documentation and reports to Congress showed that 31 individuals died in custody along the southwest border from fiscal years 2014 through 2019, but CBP documented 20 deaths in its reports.”
One death along the southern border just days ago shows the need to shine a light on this secrecy. Borderzine reports a woman with severe head injuries was found by border agents on July 8. She died shortly after being transported to a hospital. “Scant information is available regarding her identity, and it appears that no law enforcement agency is investigating her death,” the report said.
“Incidents like this—in which no press release disclosed her death, no agency has claimed responsibility for investigating it, and no public identification of the woman has been made—begs the question: how many migrants die and then fall through the cracks of complex bureaucracy, with far-away family members left wondering what happened?” the Borderzine report asked.
