Immigration officials announced new health checks for immigrant children under detention after a second child, an 8-year-old boy, died Christmas Eve while under the agency's care.
"This is a tragic loss. On behalf of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, our deepest sympathies go out to the family," said CBP Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan in a Dec. 25 statement. He explained new measures for dealing with detained immigrant children and released more details about what happened leading up to the boy's Dec. 24 death.
But Catholic groups such as the Hope Border Institute in El Paso, Texas, said the death could have been prevented if U.S. authorities were not blocking migrants from entry points where they can legally ask for asylum. Instead, they said, migrants are driven to enter through more dangerous locations, where they experience dehydration and other dangers, or they are sent to crowded locations not fit to house children.
"This was bound to happen," said Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute. "It's completely unacceptable. Children are not supposed to be housed at a checkpoint."
According to the statement by CBP, the agency charged with border control, the child and his father were apprehended Dec. 18 "west of the Paso Del Norte Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas, for illegal entry."
Between then and Dec. 24, they were moved around several locations and were given food and water and provided "welfare checks" throughout the journey. The agency's account said that on Dec. 24 in the morning, an agent noticed the child had "glossy eyes" and was coughing. He was sent along with his father to a general hospital for "possible influenza symptoms" and given Tylenol and another medication.
After being released from the hospital the same day, the boy and his father were taken to "temporary holding" at a highway checkpoint, the agency said, where later that evening the child vomited and "appeared lethargic." Because of the child's worsening condition, later in the evening authorities sent the pair back to the hospital.
On Dec. 24, en route to the hospital, the boy began to vomit once again and lost consciousness, the agency's statement said, and hospital staff were not able to revive him. The boy was pronounced dead just before midnight, according to CBP.
While the agency has not released the boy's name, a statement from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus identified him as Felipe Alonzo Gomez of Guatemala. He is the second child identified as dying while under detention by U.S. border authorities in December. Earlier in the month, authorities said 7-year-old Jakelin Caal, a girl, also from Guatemala, died of dehydration while under Border Patrol custody.
"We had the death of yet another young child, and that is very troubling," Corbett said in a Dec. 26 telephone interview with Catholic News Service from El Paso. "I don't know if this is politics, I don't know what's going on, but this game that politicians are playing in Washington (dealing with) the border is proving deadly."
For some Catholic groups, the second child's death on Christmas Eve hit particularly hard.
"While parents across the U.S. woke to celebrate Christmas morning with their children, Felipe's father, who traveled with him (and his mother who remained in Guatemala) mourned the loss of their young boy," said Christopher Kerr, executive director of the Ignatian Solidarity Network based in Ohio. "Felipe's death is a reminder that children and their parents are coming to our border in the same state that the baby Jesus faced as Mary and Joseph struggled to find a safe place for his birth -- vulnerable and at risk. As Christians, we are called to respond with compassion, love and hospitality."
The group made an effort to get more than 1,000 people to send virtual Christmas cards "to Congress and President Trump specifically about care for those who are seeking asylum," Kerr said.
But the irreversible loss of another child's life is "a tragic example of the desperate need our country has for humane migration policies that respect the dignity and rights of all people," Kerr said.
"The Ignatian Solidarity Network will continue to mobilize our network to call on our elected leaders to ensure our government protects the most vulnerable -- especially refugees and asylum seekers, while also responding the root causes of migration through long-term solutions."
CBP said it would seek immediate health checks for all children under its custody, "with a focus on children under 10 years old."
The Washington Post reported Dec. 26 that U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will be sending medical corps from the U.S. Coast Guard to the southern border "to screen immigrants following the deaths of two young children from Guatemala who were in federal custody."
She also is set to visit temporary holding facilities for migrants in late December and will send officials from the Centers for Disease Control to investigate, the newspaper reported.
"We shouldn't have had to wait until two children died for this to happen," Corbett said. "My prayer this Christmas is that the deaths of Jakelin and Felipe are not meaningless. I hope their deaths mark the end of something and the beginning of something new. Children should not be dying. This is not a game."
these children died of natural causes, of an illness that they probably brought with them, even tho the parents insisted that they travel. So please stop beating up on border patrol who provided medical attention once the illness became known. It really stinks that the US border agents are scapegoated for problems by NGOs and others with a vested interest in making our govt. look bad. How can the children die of dehydration when the authorities gave them plenty of water? America please publish factual reports instead of all this opinionating!
Dear Editors,
Please stop giving us these half factual, heart wrenching stories.
Why didn't you question what a man was doing taking his little son away from his mother and traveling from Guatemala to the US border? Was this to somehow legitimize the man? Did you do a paternity test on the man who claimed to be the father?
Please take a moment and go back to how Hilary Clinton handled the issue of adults coming to this border with children. Hilary immediately refused any adult at the border with a child. Word spread quickly through Latin America not to bring children.
San Diego was the entry point for the 9/11 pilots of one of the planes. The men went to a civilian airport in San Diego and learned how to take off and fly. They never bothered to finish, or learn to land.
Obama could have pioneered a DACA program through the Congress when he was President. He didn't. He used those people to draw attention away from the Investment Bankers who lined his campaign chest and had him buy them out of the sub prime fiasco. So when Obama left office, there was no safety net in place for DACA.
I am sick of the years of bipartisan political posturing of both sides. Our Border Patrol Agents are some of the finest men and women it has been my pleasure to know. Your article makes them sound horrid.
Our borders are sovereign, and we are one Nation under God, and I wish you would stop preying on our emotions and instead start asking for reasonable laws.