Seven-Year-Old Guatemalan Girl Dies From Dehydration While In Border Patrol Custody

Migrants form a line outside of one of the cages.

A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died from dehydration and shock while in border patrol custody.

The child was detained along with her father last week after illegally crossing the border from Mexico. Not long after, reports indicate that the child began having seizures, which emergency workers attributed to the fact that she “had not eaten or consumed water for several days,” according to the Washington Post.

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The girl was flown to an El Paso hospital while her father waited for a meeting with the city’s Guatemalan consul. Medics at the hospital were initially successful in reviving the girl, but less than 24 hours later, she died of cardiac arrest.

“Our sincerest condolences go out to the family of the child,” Andrew Meehan, a spokesman for Customs and Border Patrol, said in a statement. “Border Patrol agents took every possible step to save the child’s life under the most trying of circumstances.”

“As fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, we empathize with the loss of any child,” Meehan added.

Over 100 other individuals were detained along side the girl and her father by New Mexico border patrol agents. They are being housed in facilities that the CPB Commissioner Kevin McAleenan has admitted were built “to handle mostly male single adults in custody, not families and children.”

 

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