Thread: Guatemalan boy, 8, dies in US Border Patrol custody

Guatemalan boy, 8, dies in US Border Patrol custody

By Greg Norman | Fox News
Published 16 hours ago

Second migrant child dies in US custody, CBP reports

8-year-old child from Guatemala was reportedly suffering from a cold and fever.

An 8-year-old boy from Guatemala died Tuesday while in U.S. custody, immigration officials announced, becoming the second child to die in such circumstances this month.

In a statement, Customs and Border Protection said the boy -- identified by the Guatemalan consul in Phoenix as Felipe Gomez Alonzo -- died shortly after midnight at the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo, N.M. The cause of death is unknown; he had received treatment at the hospital starting on Christmas Eve.

Immigration officials say an agent first “noticed that the child showed signs of potential illness” Monday and brought the boy and his father to the medical center, where the boy was diagnosed with a “common cold.”

Prior to leaving the hospital, though, staff found a fever. They discharged the boy in the mid-afternoon with prescriptions for amoxicillin and Ibuprofen.

But later in the evening, the child “exhibited nausea and vomiting and was transferred back” to the facility for evaluation and treatment, CBP said, before dying around midnight.

Officials say the death is under investigation.

“DHS has continued to see a dramatic increase in unaccompanied children and family units arriving at our borders illegally or without authorization,” CBP added in a statement. “Consistent with existing law, these individuals are held at federal facilities pending their removal or release into the interior of the United States with a notice to appear at a court hearing.”

The death came during an ongoing dispute over border security and with a partial government shutdown underway over President Donald Trump's request for border wall funding. The White House referred questions about the latest case to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, CBP's parent agency. CBP officers and the Border Patrol remain on the job despite the shutdown.

CBP promised "an independent and thorough review of the circumstances."

Alamogordo is about 90 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border at El Paso, Texas. Ruben Garcia, director of El Paso's Annunciation House, said Tuesday that he had no reason to believe his shelter had served the family but was waiting for further details about what happened.

According to Guatemala's foreign ministry, the father and son entered the U.S. at El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 18, then were taken to the Border Patrol's Alamogordo station Sunday. Oscar Padilla, the Guatemalan consul in Phoenix, said he was told by the boy's father in a telephone interview that the two had been traveling from their home in Nenton, a village about 280 miles from Guatemala City. They were planning to go to Johnson City, Tenn.

Padilla identified rhe father as 47-year-old Agustin Gomez, and said he remains in U.S. Border Patrol custody.

CBP typically detains immigrants for no more than a few days when they cross the border before either releasing them or turning them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for longer-term detention. Agency guidelines say immigrants generally shouldn't be detained for more than 72 hours in CBP holding facilities, which are usually smaller and have fewer services than ICE's detention centers.

Parents and children together are almost always released quickly due to limited space in ICE's family detention facilities.

The Guatemalan foreign ministry called for an investigation "in accordance with due process." A CBP spokesman on Tuesday did not respond to questions about the ministry's statement but previously said that the boy had been "previously apprehended" by its agents.

The body of a 7-year-old girl who died while in U.S. Border Patrol custody earlier this month – also from Guatemala -- was flown to her home country Sunday ahead of burial in her home village Tuesday.

In that case, Jakelin Caal and her father, Nery Caal, were traveling with a group of 163 migrants who arrived at the New Mexico border. After they were taken into custody Dec. 6, the father told a U.S. agent that the girl was sick and vomiting.

The father then signed a paper stating that Jakelin was in good health, but it was not clear how much he understood what it said. The form was in English, and agents read it to him in Spanish.

A bus carrying the two left the Antelope Wells port of entry for the Lordsburg station, roughly 90 minutes away. By then, according to a Customs and Border Protection statement, Jakelin's temperature had reached 105.7 degrees. Emergency medical technicians had to revive her.

She was then flown to a hospital in El Paso, where she died the next day.

Caal's death led to criticism of immigration officials by U.S. lawmakers, with five senior Democrats calling for a thorough review of their conduct. CBP announced new notification procedures in response to Jakelin's death, which was not revealed until Dec.14.

Large numbers of Guatemalan families have been arriving in recent weeks in New Mexico, often in remote and dangerous parts of the desert.

Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat who will represent the district starting in January, called for a thorough and transparent investigation into the children's deaths and more medical resources along the border.

"This is inexcusable," she said in a statement Tuesday. "Instead of immediately acting to keep children and all of us safe along our border, this administration forced a government shutdown over a wall."

A spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, a Republican whose district along the U.S.-Mexico border includes Alamogordo, could not be reached Tuesday.

Felipe Gonzalez, the United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said Monday that the U.S. government's detention of children due to their immigration status violated international law.

Fox News' Amy Lieu, Sam Chamberlain and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/border-pa...ies-in-custody

Too much liability. Too much responsibility. Too much for Americans to handle, because a) we don't want to b) we're not required to and c) we don't want to pay for it or worry about it any more. We want it all to STOP and STOP NOW.

NO MORE CHILDREN ADMITTED TO US SOIL WITHOUT PAPERS. NO ASYLUM, NO REFUGEES, NO ILLEGAL ENTRY AT ALL FOR CHILDREN OR FAMILIES. END IT ALL NOW. JUST SHOO THEM BACK INTO MEXICO IMMEDIATELY.

These children may have been allergic to ibuprofen.

They are NOT vetted, not investigated and not given clean bill of health BEFORE they come here!

They have NO proof for asylum and do not qualify!

LOAD UP BUSES AT THE BORDER AND BUS THEM IMMEDIATELY BACK TO THEIR PRESIDENT'S DOORSTEP

THIS HAS GOT TO STOP NOW!

We are not the dumping ground for every sick, disease infected and pregnant person on the planet

Another strikeout for the open borders lobby: Deceased migrant child's father refused him medical care

The left tried to make political hay from this latest migrant death, but the news that the father refused the child free medical care pretty well ensured that that "narrative" has fallen flat.

December 27, 2018
By Monica Showalter

The open-borders lobby thought they had a live one.
An eight-year old Guatemalan boy, traveling with his wannabe-illegal immigrant father, died in Border Patrol custody as the two crossed illegally from Mexico into the New Mexico badlands.
It's the second child death for the month as migrants move to dangerous areas to cross over illegally. Yes, it's very sad. And lefties have had a field day, pinning the whole thing on the Border Patrol.
There's just one problem: The migrant child's father refused free medical care, courtesy of the Border Patrol.
That certainly messes up the narrative the left has put out there. Here's the lefties trying to make political hay from it:

Democratic lawmakers pushed back on Wednesday. Representative Nancy Pelosi, the speaker-designate of the House, deemed the death of two children in United States custody “unconscionable” and called on Congress to investigate.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the incoming chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said, “There is no question that the system is not working.” Mr. Thompson said he would immediately call department officials to testify after he takes up the committee gavel in January.

Here's the New York Times headline, touting 'breaking point' and conveniently leaving off that the words were those of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen from its headline. Nielsen. after all, is someone whose words the Times pooh-poohs and buries otherwise:

‘A Breaking Point’: Second Child’s Death Prompts New Procedures for Border Agency

Here is what she really said, well buried in the piece:

“Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders,” she said. “Smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north.”

The aim of publicizing the death, of course, is to stop all Border Patrol apprehensions of illegals at the border. If a kid is apprehended, sick, and somehow dies (and it's a given that with 600,000 illegal border crossers each year, statistically some are going to die) the Border Patrol is always to blame.
The kid after all, was being used as a chit to avoid border detention, given the leftist yelling about separation of families at the border. That's the perverse incentive for bringing families and shipping unaccompanied youths over the border, who now account for 60% of apprehended illegal entries - the law says those people have to be let out after just a few days, and not await the consequences of their illegal border breaching in detention the way single crossers must do. Lefties can stand up and take a bow for that one.
But the issue here is not that the Border Patrol killed the kid, which is what the lefties had been trying to push as the new media narrative, and will probably keep trying to do, given their belief in the vote-rich potential of championing illegals. The problem is that the kid was sick, the kid was offered medical care, and according to the Border Patrol, the father said no. If I had to guess, it was quite possibly out of ignorance about the boy's grave condition (the guy was a peasant), and motivated by a desire to just get let out.
The Border Patrol didn't kill the kid, the father did, turning down free medical care for the kid.
Nielsen says the Border Patrol will start ignoring the wishes of parents now on the issue, and of course, that will raise new crocodile tears from the left about parental rights and "separations of families." Some sort of 'abuse' could happen, too. What the story shows is that the perverse incentives the left has set up to encourage illegal immigration with kids in tow is actually killing a certain number of kids, who don't fare well on dirty, extended, desert-badland journeys in high heat without water, and it's likely this one won't be the last. They yelled and yelled about 'family separations' and this is what it's leading to.
What's far more humane is a policy of sending all illegal border crossers back over the Mexican border for their own good. I imagine implementing such a policy would be impossible without some creative and progressive judge-proof legislation, but it would end the desert deaths the Border Patrol is constantly blamed for. For now, the news that the father refused medical care has left the open borders lobby with another dry hole.

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https://www.americanthinker.com/blog...cal_care_.html

These children may have been allergic to ibuprofen.

I too was thinking the boys death could have been due to some unknown allergy. These folks are coming here with very sketchy to no medical histories and many of the parents are very uneducated. It is very likely that the parents don't know the things their own children are allergic to.

Exactly.

And this is why they should all be processed and returned home within 24 hours including their UAC's.

They need to apply on THEIR soil, get investigated, vetted and medical exams BEFORE coming here.

There are over 100 countries who signed the U.N. Migration Pact. They can apply to go to any ONE of those countries. They do not need to come here anymore.

Close the whole border down and stop this massive invasion of our county by people who want free stuff, have an anchor baby and a job. That is not our responsibility to take on.

Trump should request U.N. and NATO troops go to their country to solve their problems. WE pay them to defend us too, not just everybody else in the world...now use them! Use the resources that WE pay for...we pay them billions.

Absolutely. DON'T LET THEM IN! We don't have the time, money or inclination to deal with this crap. American children are dying every day from medical issues and many other problems.

The illegals bring their sick kids with them and then when the kid dies, they sue america and get millions.

It's all an evil horrible scam, it has to stop.

DO NOT LET THEM IN!! DO NOT LET THEM IN!!!

NO PAPERS, NO ENTRY!! PERIOD.