Family reject US officials’ account of daughter’s death
THE family of a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl who died in US Border Patrol custody are disputing an account from officials who said she had not been given food or water for days.
In a statement released by lawyers, the parents of Jakelin Caal said the girl had been given food and water and appeared to be in good health as she travelled through Mexico with her father, 29-year-old Nery Gilberto Caal Cuz.
The family added that Jakelin had not been travelling through the desert for days before she was taken into custody.
A cause of death has not yet been released.
Tekandi Paniagua, the Guatemalan consul in Del Rio, Texas, said he spoke with Jakelin’s father and he told the diplomat the group they were travelling in was dropped off in Mexico about a 90-minute walk from the border.
The family’s statement was released on Saturday during a news conference in El Paso, Texas, at the Annunciation House immigrant shelter where Jakelin’s father is staying. Her family did not attend and has asked for privacy.
Jakelin and her father were seeking asylum in the US and were among a large group of migrants arrested on December 6 near a remote border crossing in New Mexico.
Hours later they were placed on a bus to the nearest Border Patrol station, but Jakelin began vomiting then stopped breathing. She later died at a Texas hospital.
Border Patrol officials said agents did everything they could to save the girl, but that she had not had food or water for days.
They added that an initial screening showed no evidence of health problems, and that her father had signed a form indicating she was in good health. But the family took issue with the form, which was in English, a language her father does not speak or read. He communicated with border agents in Spanish but he primarily speaks the Mayan Q’eqchi’ language.
“It is unacceptable for any government agency to have persons in custody sign documents in a language that they clearly do not understand,” the statement said.
Jakelin’s family is urging authorities to conduct an “objective and thorough” investigation into Jakelin’s death and to determine whether officials met standards for taking children into custody.