An eight year-old child of illegal aliens died while in the custody of U.S. Customs and Border Protection earlier this week, prompting the child’s mother to lash out against the administration officials who she believes are responsible for her daughter’s tragic passing.
U.S. Customs and Border protection claimed that the girl “tragically passed away” while she and her family “were in custody at the Harlingen Station where she experienced a medical emergency.”
She was taken to a nearby hospital for medical treatment, by which point it was too late to save her little life.
“They killed my daughter, because she was nearly a day and a half without being able to breathe,” Mabel Alvarez Benedicks told the Associated Press. “She cried and begged for her life and they ignored her. They didn’t do anything for her.”
Reports say that the girl was afflicted with a case of influenza which did not initially require medical attention, and that the suffering child did not communicate her condition to the authorities.
Her family had crossed the border illegally on May 9th as part of a mass influx of migrants occasioned by the the expiration of Title 42, a COVID-era measure which facilitated the deportation of illegal immigrants on the basis of public health.
Perhaps understandably, these conditions have done little to subdue the anger and grief of the child’s mother. Benedicks disputes the account given by the authorities, claiming that the immigration officials knew of her daughter’s heart problems and sickle cell anemia, but refused to take action out of indifference to her care.
The news of this girl’s passing follows shortly after the news of a Honduran adolescent’s untimely passing also in the custody of border enforcement agencies.
On May 10th, Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza died of a suspected epileptic seizure while being held in detention by immigration enforcement officials. A local sheriff stated that officials had records of Espinoza’s epilepsy but did not read them, resulting in the unfortunate loss of young life.
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