A 16-year-old child from Guatemala has died at a border patrol station in south Texas according to a statement issued by the US government.
The death marks the fifth time a migrant child has died in US custody since December 2018.
US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement that border patrol agents apprehended the teenager in south Texas’s Rio Grande valley on May 13. The boy, who was due for placement in a facility for youth operated by the US Department of Health and Human Services (“DHHS”), was found unresponsive this morning during a welfare check at the agency’s station in Weslaco, Texas. His cause of death is unknown.
Although he had been detained for a week, federal law requires the Department of Homeland Security (“Homeland Security”) to send minors unaccompanied by a parent or legal guardian to the DHHS within 72 hours of determining that the child is unaccompanied.
Border patrol has faced months of scrutiny over its care of children apprehended at the border. A two-year-old child died last week after he and his mother were detained by the border patrol. On April 30 a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy died in hospital after officials at a Homeland Security detention facility noticed that he was unwell. These deaths occurred in spite of the fact that after the deaths of two children aged seven and eight in December, Homeland Security ordered medical checks of all children in its custody and expanded medical screenings.
