Guatemalan boy dies at border station while awaiting move to a shelter

Zolan Kanno-Youngs

May 21, 2019 10:17 AM

A fourth, another 16-year-old Guatemalan boy, died last month after being placed in a shelter for young migrants by the Department of Health and Human Services.

Guatemalan boy dies at border station while awaiting move to a shelter

WASHINGTON — A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy who officials said was sick with influenza was found dead at a Border Patrol station in South Texas on Monday morning, after a week of waiting in holding facilities to be sent to a shelter for migrant children.

The teenager, identified by officials as Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, was the third migrant child — all of them from Guatemala — to die in Customs and Border Protection custody.

A fourth, another 16-year-old Guatemalan boy, died last month after being placed in a shelter for young migrants by the Department of Health and Human Services.

“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,” John Sanders, the agency’s acting commissioner, said in the statement Monday. He said the agency was “committed to the health, safety and humane treatment of those in our custody.”

Carlos entered the United States without his parents near Hidalgo, Texas, on May 13 in a group of about 70 other migrants. An official with Customs and Border Protection, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation into Carlos’ death was in preliminary stages, told reporters that the boy did not show signs of illness in an initial medical screening on the day he was detained.

He was held in a processing center in the agency’s Rio Grande Valley sector until Sunday, the official said. Early that morning, Carlos told agents at the facility he was not feeling well. A nurse practitioner determined he had influenza and recommended he receive doses of Tamiflu. Border Patrol agents bought the medicine from a nearby pharmacy.

Later Sunday, Carlos was moved to a Border Patrol station in Weslaco, about 20 miles away, where he could be separated, the official said. He was found dead Monday morning, an hour after a welfare check.

Officials said Carlos was given a diagnosis of Influenza A, but it was not clear if he was specifically tested for the illness, and officials did not respond to questions for clarification.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs