A seven-year-old girl has died after being taken into custody by the US Border Patrol, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed on Thursday.
The girl, from Guatemala, died of dehydration and shock eight hours after she was taken into custody, the Washington Post reported.
On December 6, the child and her father had been detained by immigration authorities in the US state of New Mexico as part of a group of 163 people who approached US agents to turn themselves in, the newspaper reported.
Early on December 7, the girl was found to have a 41- degree-Celsius fever and was taken by helicopter to El Paso hospital in Texas where she died, according to the report.
A statement by a DHS spokesperson said “an accompanied female juvenile detainee began having seizures”.
The names of the girl and her father were not released. The agency, which typically provides food and water to migrants in its custody, is investigating the incident to ensure whether appropriate policies were followed, the Post said.
The death of the child is expected to intensify scrutiny over the conditions endured by those detained at Border Patrol stations and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities under the administration of Donald Trump, who has made toughening immigration policies a central tenet of his presidency and has pledged to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico.
Source: Aljazeera
