8-year-old girl dies in US Border Patrol custody in Texas
An 8-year-old girl died after suffering a “medical emergency” while in US Border Patrol custody in Texas on Wednesday, authorities said.
The girl and her family were being held at a facility in the town of Harlingen, next to the Mexican border, Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. No other details have been released on the identity of the girl.
“Emergency medical services were called to the station and transported her to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead,” the statement said, adding that the Office of Professional Responsibility would conduct an investigation in accordance with standard protocol in case of death.
The agency said it contacted the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General’s Office and the Harlingen Police Department about the incident.
sergeant. Larry Moore, a Harlingen Police Department spokesman, told The Associated Press he had no information about the death.
The death comes days after a 17-year-old unaccompanied migrant from Honduras died at a facility run by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement in Florida.
The Honduran government named him Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza and called for a full investigation and criminal investigation if wrongdoing is discovered.
On May 12, Title 42 was lifted – a restriction related to the Covid-19 pandemic that placed limits on immigration. Amid fears of a large influx of migrants, and after an initial wave, numbers have returned to normal.
Blas Nuñez-Neto, assistant secretary for border and immigration policy at the Department of Homeland Security, told reporters during a Wednesday briefing that the daily average of “‘encounters'” with migrants seeking to cross the border since May 12 had fallen from more than 10,000 to just over 4,400, including less than 4,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“This represents a decrease of 56%, less than half of the average encountered in the four days prior to the lifting of Title 42 when Border Patrol encountered an average of 10,100 individuals each day,” he said. he declares.
In the four days since Title 42 was lifted, Border Patrol processed and released more than 6,000 migrants to the United States without court dates or the ability to track them.
Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala are currently the most popular countries of origin for migrants trying to cross the border, he said.