In Washington, The day her ailing daughter was declared dead at a Texas hospital, the mother of a little migrant girl who died in U.S. Border Patrol custody last week reportedly asked for medical assistance at least three times, according to federal officials.
Born with a heart defect, eight-year-old Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez passed away on May 17 during a medical emergency inside a Border Patrol station in Harlingen, Texas. Reyes Alvarez’s heart disease and sickle cell anaemia were mentioned in an initial autopsy, according to officials. A local medical examiner is still looking into the tragedy.
Reyes Alvarez and her family were initially processed by Border Patrol agents on May 9, according to an updated statement released on Sunday by Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the organization’s parent. For eight days, the family was in the agency’s care.Why Reyes Alvarez and her family remained in Border Patrol custody after the allotted 72 hours is unknown.
However, earlier this month, the government struggled to find housing for thousands of detained migrants after border arrivals reached a record 10,000 per day just before Title 42 pandemic-era immigration limitations came to an end. Since then, illegal crossings across the southern border have drastically decreased.
Officials at the Border Patrol facilities, according to Reyes Alvarez’s mother, denied earlier requests to admit her daughter to the hospital, she told The Associated Press. According to the AP, the mother claimed, “They killed my daughter because she had been unable to breathe for almost a day and a half.” They turned a blind eye to her cries and pleas for life. They took no action to help her.