Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Another death in Border Patrol custody

The United States government said that a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala died Monday at a Border Patrol station in southern Texas, becoming the fifth death of a migrant child since December.

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement that Border Patrol apprehended the teenager in the Rio Grande Valley on May 13. The agency says the teenager was found unresponsive this morning during a welfare check.

The agency did not say why the teenager had been detained for a week, but said he was "due for placement" in a facility for youth operated by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The death comes less than a week after a two-year-old child died after he and his mother were detained by the Border Patrol.

[...]

All five children who have died after being apprehended by the Border Patrol were from Guatemala, which is ravaged by violence, poverty, and drought. All of those who have been identified were from the country's indigenous communities.

[...]

In early December, seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin died of a bacterial infection.

Eight-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo died on Christmas Eve of a flu infection.

[...]

Juan de Leon Gutierrez, 16, died on April 30 after officials noticed he was sick at a youth detention facility operated by US Department of Health and Human Services. The medical examiner in Corpus Christi, Texas, said Juan had been diagnosed with a rare condition known as Pott's puffy tumour, which can be caused by a severe sinus infection or head trauma.
  alJazeera
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