Second migrant child within sixteen days dies in US custody

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Today, authorities released the official cause of death of eight-year-old Guatemalan boy Felipe Alonzo-Gomez, who died in the custody of United States Customs and Border Protection(CBP) on Christmas Eve. Findings showed CAUSE OF DEATH. Alonzo-Gomex was the second child in the recent wave of Central American migrants to die while being held by U.S. border patrol in December 2018.

Shortly after Alonzo-Gomez’ death, CBP issued a statement saying an agent first noticed he was ill on Monday and he was sent to Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Medical staff initially believed he had a cold, though they later detected a fever. They prescribed a common antibiotic and painkiller, amoxicillin and Ibuprofen, and released him back to border patrol. When he worsened and began to vomit later that day, he was returned to the hospital, where he died around midnight.

The chairman-elect of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Congressman Joaquin Castro, released Alonzo-Gomez’ name. “While the CBP notified Congress within 24 hours as mandated by law, we must ensure that we treat migrants and asylum-seekers with human dignity and provide the necessary medical care to anyone in the custody of the United States government,” he told the press in a statement.

Alonzo-Gomez arrived at the U.S. border crossing near El Paso, Texas with his father on December 18. The two were detained together. One CBP official said the two had been held at a checkpoint between Las Cruces and Alamogordo because of overcrowding at the El Paso facility. The cells there are very small, designed to hold single adults for periods of hours during processing. CBP officers say they provided the two with food, water, access to showers, and checked on them many times. Court orders dictate that CBP can hold children for no more than 72 hours, so border authorities tend to move them from facility to facility. Alonzo-Gomez had been in custody at various facilities for about 130 hours at the time of his death.

On December 8, seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin, also from Guatemala and also traveling with her father, died in New Mexico after two days in U.S. custody. Her cause of death is given as dehydration and shock. According to CBP, the girl was already starved and dehydrated before entering their custody, but her family says she was healthy. Maquin’s remains have been returned to Guatemala and are scheduled to be transported to her home community, Raxruha. A subsequent congressional oversight trip raised concerns about whether the detained migrants are provided with proper medical care. Since Maquin’s death, CBP has been required to report the death of anyone in its custody to Congress within 24 hours.

According to medical professionals who spoke to The Washington Post, after Maquin’s death, Customs and Border Protection performed medical exams of the approximately 700 children in its custody, announcing it would take anyone sick or injured to a hospital for further observation. It is not clear how many children were taken to hospitals.

The El Paso area has seen a great upsurge recently in the number of people seeking asylum in the United States and the facilities that would have been used to house them have been overwhelmed. The Trump administration has characterized this as a “caravan” of migrants from Central America and claims that many people who pass their initial screening don’t show up subsequent hearings. In fact, most of them do go to court, though then only about 20% are found to meet the criteria to remain in the United States.

These events come as U.S. President Donald Trump is negotiating with Congress over budgetary funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border designed to prevent illegal immigration, which was one of his key campaign promises.

The foreign ministry of Guatemala has called for a full investigation of Alonzo-Gomez’s death and access to his medical records.

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