CHILD’S BORDER DEATH RAISES ALARMS
The White House defends agency after a migrant girl dies in custody and no report is made to Congress.
WASHINGTON — The White House defended the Border Patrol on Friday after a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died of exhaustion and dehydration while in custody, but the child’s death — and the border agency’s weeklong delay in disclosing it — prompted an outcry on Capitol Hill.
The case intensified scrutiny of Border Patrol detention practices and raised questions about whether agents’ negligence contributed to the death. It also sparked concerns that the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has funneled migrants into more dangerous areas along the border.
Homeland Security officials said they had launched an inspector general’s investigation into the death and whether regulations were followed, and were awaiting results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death.
Hogan Gidley, the deputy White House press secretary, called the girl’s death “a horrific, tragic situation” and “100% preventable.”
But he blamed Congress, and especially Democrats, for not passing what he
called “some common-sense laws to disincentivize people” from crossing the border illegally.
Gidley also placed responsibility for the girl’s death on her father. “Does the administration take responsibility for a parent taking a child on a trek through Mexico to get to this country?” he said. “No.”
The girl, whose name has not been released, was with her father and 161 other migrants who crossed into New Mexico last week. They were about 90 miles into the U.S. about 9:15 p.m. on Dec. 6 when they turned themselves in to three Border Patrol agents.
The child died just over 24 hours later in custody.
She was initially taken into custody at Forward Operating Base Bounds, an outpost near the Antelope Wells border crossing, and about 5 a.m. on Dec. 7 was bused about 90 minutes to the Lordsburg Border Patrol station, Homeland Security officials said Friday.
But by the time she arrived at the station, she had begun to suffer seizures, her temperature had jumped to 105.9 degrees and she had stopped breathing. She was taken by helicopter to Providence Children’s Hospital in El Paso, about 165 miles away, but died after a heart attack early on Dec. 8.
Hospital tests showed brain swelling, and doctors diagnosed the girl with liver failure, a Customs and Border Protection official told reporters in a conference call Friday. According to the hospital’s initial assessment, the girl died due to sepsis shock, dehydration and exhaustion, said the official, who spoke on condition he not be identified.
Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, initially said the girl “reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days,” but on Friday officials said the migrants were offered water.
The agency did not publicly acknowledge the girl’s death, or report it to Congress, until after the Washington Post reported it Thursday night.
Under a 2018 law, Customs and Border Protection must report to congressional appropriations committees “the death of any individual in CBP custody or the death of any individual subsequent to the use of force by CBP personnel within 24 hours.”
The committees were not notified, according to aides to Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (DVt.), the ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, and lawmakers on the House Appropriations Committee.
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan did not mention the death when he testified Tuesday to the Senate Judiciary Committee about oversight of the Border Patrol.
A spokesman for Sen. Charles E. Grassley (RIowa), chairman of the committee, said the senator had not been notified of the death. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the ranking member, wasn’t notified either, her office said.
A Homeland Security official said Friday that Customs and Border Protection was reviewing its disclosure and notification process.
“It’s heartbreaking and unacceptable that a 7-yearold girl died of dehydration and shock last week in Customs and Border Protection custody,” Feinstein said in a statement. “Families walking hundreds of miles across the desert for a chance for refuge in the United States are desperate.”
According to a Homeland Security official who briefed reporters, Border Patrol agents did initial screenings of the migrants after they were first taken into custody. The official said the girl’s father signed a form attesting neither he nor his daughter were ill.
But the tiny Bounds outpost was swamped by the group and agents began to bus them to Lordsburg. The bus first took unaccompanied minors and others considered a priority, so the girl and her father had to wait for about eight hours.
At that time, the father told authorities his daughter was sick and vomiting, the official said, and agents called ahead to Lordsburg for an emergency medical technician to meet the bus. When it arrived the girl wasn’t breathing and a medevac was called in to fly her to the hospital.