By Alicia A. Caldwell
A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy died Monday in U.S. Border Patrol custody, the agency said. The boy is the fifth child to die after crossing the border illegally in the past six months; four of them have died in U.S. government custody.
Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez was found unresponsive during a welfare check Monday morning at a Border Patrol station in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. A CBP official said the boy had been given a welfare check an hour before being found unresponsive.
Carlos was traveling without his parents and was taken into custody May 13 near Hidalgo, Texas, as part of a group of about 70 people who crossed the Rio Grande illegally.
The CBP official said Monday that Carlos was diagnosed with the flu on Sunday and prescribed Tamiflu before being transferred from a processing center in McAllen to the station in nearby Weslaco on Sunday. The official said Carlos was set to be transferred to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter in Brownsville.
Under federal law, unaccompanied immigrant children can generally be held in Border Patrol facilities for up to 72 hours. The official said the agency relies on Health and Human Services to determine when and where unaccompanied immigrant children are transferred.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said in the vast majority of cases HHS had been able to assign unaccompanied kids to a shelter within 72 hours of DHS determining that a child was unaccompanied. Cases that took longer generally involved unique health issues or sibling group placement, the agency said.
Acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders said in a statement: “The men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection are saddened by the tragic loss of this young man and our condolences are with his family. CBP is committed to the health, safety and humane treatment of those in our custody.”
The official said Carlos’s death is being investigated by the Weslaco Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, CBPs office of professional responsibility and the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General.
Since December, four other children who crossed the border illegally have also died. Two Guatemalan children traveling with their fathers died in Border Patrol custody in December. A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy being cared for by HHS died at a Texas hospital last month. And this month, a 2-year-old Guatemalan boy died after spending weeks in the intensive care unit of a Texas hospital. That boy and his mother had been released from government custody after he was admitted to the hospital.
More than 248,000 immigrants traveling as families and more than 44,000 unaccompanied children, many fleeing gang violence in Central America, have been caught crossing the border illegally since the start of the government’s fiscal year in October, overwhelming border facilities and straining government resources. Border Patrol stations have been dangerously crowded in recent months, prompting agents in El Paso to hold some migrants outside in a makeshift holding cell beneath a bridge.
Two tent cities—one in El Paso and the other in the Rio Grande Valley—were opened this month to help ease the crowding. CBP also has been bussing or flying some migrants to less crowded areas along the border for processing.
Administration officials have repeatedly described the situation at the border as a security and humanitarian crisis. In March, Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan warned that more migrants could die if the flow of migrants wasn’t stemmed.
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