Homeland chief visits city where boy held

EL PASO, Texas — Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen on Friday visited the Texas border city where a Guatemalan boy was detained with his father before dying in government custody.

Homeland Security spokesman Katie Waldman said earlier in the week that Nielsen was scheduled to tour multiple stations and substations, and was also scheduled to meet with emergency medical technicians and medical professionals, as well as local officials.

Nielsen is scheduled to go to Yuma, Ariz., today.

Homeland Security did not immediately release more details on the trip or who Nielsen met, saying it was closed to the press.

The trip came four days after the death of 8-year-old Felipe Gomez Alonzo. Felipe was the second Guatemalan child to die in government custody in three weeks.

Nielsen has called the death “deeply concerning and heartbreaking” and requested medical help from other government agencies, including the U.S. Coast Guard. As Nielsen made the trip to Texas, New Mexico’s Democratic senators, Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich, sent her a letter Friday seeking answers about the boy’s death.

Felipe and his father, Agustin Gomez, were apprehended by border agents on Dec. 18 near the Paso del Norte bridge connecting El Paso to Juarez, Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The two were detained at the bridge’s processing center and then the Border Patrol station in El Paso, until being taken at about 1 a.m. Sunday to a facility in Alamogordo, N.M., about 90 miles away.

After an agent noticed Felipe coughing, father and son were taken to an Alamogordo hospital, where Felipe was diagnosed with a common cold and found to have a fever of 103 degrees Fahrenheit, Customs and Border Protection has said.

Felipe was held for observation for 90 minutes, according to the immigration agency, before being released with prescriptions for amoxicillin and ibuprofen.

But the boy fell sick hours later on Monday and was re-admitted to the hospital. He died just before midnight.

New Mexico authorities said late Thursday that an autopsy shows Felipe had the flu, but more tests need to be done before a cause of death can be determined.

Separately, a shelter director in El Paso said his agency has served 1,300 people in the past five days after they were released by U.S. immigration authorities.

Ruben Garcia of Annunciation House said Thursday that nonprofit groups have had to expand their services because more people are crossing the border and the government doesn’t have the space to hold them.

Garcia estimates his organization spends $150,000 a month renting rooms because there isn’t enough shelter space.

More than 500 people arrived on Wednesday.