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Guatemalan girl aged seven dies in custody on US-Mexico border Guatemalan migrant girl, seven, dies in US border patrol custody
(about 9 hours later)
A seven-year-old girl who crossed the US-Mexico border with her father last week has died after being taken into the custody of the US border patrol, federal immigration authorities said. A seven-year-old girl who crossed a remote part of the US-Mexico border with her father last week died less than two days after being apprehended by the US border patrol in New Mexico, immigration officials have said.
The Washington Post reported that the girl died of dehydration and shock more than eight hours after she was arrested by agents near Lordsburg, New Mexico. The girl, from Guatemala, was traveling with a group of 163 people who approached agents to turn themselves in on 6 December. The girl vomited and stopped breathing in the custody of US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) before being transferred to a hospital, where she suffered brain swelling and cardiac arrest, according to CBP.
It is unknown what happened to the girl during the eight hours before she started having seizures and was flown to a hospital in El Paso. What is forcing thousands of migrants to flee their home countries? | Michael Deibert
In a statement, customs and border protection authorities said the girl had not eaten or consumed water in several days. The agency did not provide the Associated Press with the statement it gave to the Post. The CBP commissioner, Kevin McAleenan, identified the girl as Jakelin Caal Maquin. “We welcome the Department of Homeland Security’s investigation and will review the incident operationally to learn from this tragedy,” McAleenan said.
Processing 163 immigrants in a single night could have posed challenges for the agency, whose detention facilities are meant to be temporary and do not usually accommodate that many people. The girl and her father, both from Guatemala, were traveling in a group of 163 people, including 50 children who were traveling without a parent, when they were apprehended at around 9.15pm on 6 December.
When a border patrol agent arrests someone, that person gets processed at a facility but usually spends no more than 72 hours in custody before they are either transferred to immigration and customs enforcement or, if they are Mexican, quickly deported home. Four border patrol agents were on the scene, according to CBP and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials, who said it was not unusual for a small group of agents to confront large groups of migrants.
The girl’s death raises questions about whether border agents knew she was ill and whether she was fed anything or given anything to drink during the more than eight hours she was in custody. The agents conducted a screening that included a health observation. Her father indicated his daughter was healthy on a form officials said was in English but would have been marked according to a Spanish interview with the father.
Immigrants, attorneys and activists have long raised issues with the conditions of border patrol holding cells. In Tucson, Arizona, an ongoing lawsuit claims holding cells are filthy, extremely cold and lacking basic necessities such as blankets. A judge overseeing that lawsuit has ordered the agency’s Tucson sector, which patrols much of the Arizona-Mexico border, to provide blankets and mats to sleep on and to regularly turn over surveillance footage from inside the cells. They were held in a small facility near the border before being transferred by bus to a border patrol station 95 miles away. At that facility, officials said people had access to food, water and restrooms.
US border patrol agents have reported an increasing number of large groups of immigrants, many with young children, walking up to them and turning themselves in. Most are from Central America and say they are fleeing violence. They turn themselves in instead of trying to circumvent authorities, many with plans to apply for asylum. On the bus, just before 5am, the father told agents his child was sick and vomiting, then personnel at their destination were notified about the medical situation, officials said. Once they arrived, about an hour later, the father told agents his child was not breathing. Emergency medical technicians revived her twice before she was taken by air ambulance to a children’s hospital in El Paso, Texas.
Agents in Arizona are having to process groups of more than 100 people on a regular basis, sometimes including infants and toddlers. Officials said later that morning Jakelin went into cardiac arrest, showed signs of brain swelling in a scan, was breathing by machine and had liver failure.
Arresting such groups poses logistical problems for agents who have to wait on transport vans that are equipped with baby seats to take them to processing facilities, some which are at least half an hour north of the border. She died at 12:35am on Saturday with her father on the scene, officials said.
The death of the seven-year-old comes after a toddler died in May just after being released from an ICE (immigration and customs enforcement) family detention facility in Texas, and as the administration of Donald Trump attempts to ban people from asking for asylum if they cross the border illegally. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked that ban, but on Tuesday the administration asked the supreme court to reinstate it. “On behalf of the Department of Homeland Security, our sincerest condolences go out to the family of the child,” a CBP spokesperson said. “Border patrol agents took every possible step to save the child’s life under the most trying of circumstances. As fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, we empathize with the loss of any child.”
The CBP said it will investigate the incident and that an autopsy of the girl is expected.
The girl was suffering from dehydration and shock, according to CBP records seen by the Washington Post. The agency told the Post the girl “reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days”. The CBP did not confirm those details to the Guardian.
In response to the death, the White House, CBP and DHS repeatedly emphasized that the journey to the northern border is “extremely dangerous” because of the threat of violence, trafficking, extreme weather and wild animals. They said people should arrive at designated ports of entry instead of at other places on the 2,000-mile border.
But migrant rights groups say the Trump administration is exacerbating those dangers by limiting how many people can present for asylum at designated ports of entry.
Journalists and humanitarian groups have documented the US government limiting how many people can present themselves for asylum each day at ports of entry in a practice known as “metering”.
And in October, the DHS’s watchdog, the office of inspector general, said there were documented incidents of people being turned away at ports of entry and told to return when it was less busy. The report said there was evidence “limiting the volume of asylum seekers entering at ports of entry leads some aliens who would otherwise seek legal entry into the United States to cross the border illegally.”
The Trump administration also tried to bar people from seeking asylum outside ports of entry, but a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the ban because he said the government could not prove it was legal. On Tuesday, the Trump administration asked the supreme court to reinstate the ban.
The White House deputy press secretary, Hogan Gidley, said the girl’s death was tragic. She said: “If we could just come together and pass some commonsense laws to disincentivize people from coming up from the border and encourage them to do it the right way, the legal way, then those types of deaths, those types of assaults, those types of rapes, the child smuggling, the human trafficking … that would all come to an end.”
Cynthia Pompa, the advocacy manager for the ACLU border rights centre, said the number of migrant deaths had increased last year even as the number of border crossings fell.Cynthia Pompa, the advocacy manager for the ACLU border rights centre, said the number of migrant deaths had increased last year even as the number of border crossings fell.
“This tragedy represents the worst possible outcome when people, including children, are held in inhumane conditions. Lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP have exacerbated policies that lead to migrant deaths,” Pompa said.“This tragedy represents the worst possible outcome when people, including children, are held in inhumane conditions. Lack of accountability, and a culture of cruelty within CBP have exacerbated policies that lead to migrant deaths,” Pompa said.
US news Associated Press contributed to this report
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