7 year old migrant girl dies in custody.

[LittleRaven]

Truly a tragedy.

A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock after she was taken into Border Patrol custody last week for crossing from Mexico into the United States illegally with her father and a large group of migrants along a remote span of New Mexico desert, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Thursday.

But before you sharpen your pitchforks too much - note the times.

According to CBP records, the girl and her father were taken into custody about 10 p.m. Dec. 6 south of Lordsburg, N.M., as part of a group of 163 people who approached U.S. agents to turn themselves in.

More than eight hours later, the child began having seizures at 6:25 a.m., CBP records show. Emergency responders, who arrived soon after, measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees, and according to a statement from CBP, she “reportedly had not eaten or consumed water for several days.”

She was only in US custody for ~ 8 hours before succumbing, and had been walking through the desert for many days without food or water. It's not clear whether or not she received provisions once in US custody...generally speaking, migrants DO receive food and water, but we don't have details on this case yet. But even if she was given food and water, that's not always enough to counteract the shock and trauma of attempting to cross a desert with no provisions.

And we're seeing more and more of this.

Though much of the political and media attention has focused in recent weeks on migrant caravans arriving at the Tijuana-San Diego border, large numbers of Central Americans continue to cross the border into Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. The groups sometimes spend days in smugglers’ stash houses or walking through remote areas with little food or water before reaching the border.

Arrests of migrants traveling as family groups have skyrocketed this year, and Homeland Security officials say court rulings that limit their ability to keep families in detention have produced a “catch and release” system that encourages migrants to bring children as a shield against detention and deportation.

Families know that if they bring their children, Border Patrol cannot detain them. So they subject their children to a journey that has a very real chance of killing them.

What a mess.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

They bring their children because they don't want to leave their children behind in the circumstances that threaten their lives back home.

Yes, it is a dangerous trek through the desert. It's even more dangerous because US agents find and destroy cashes of water left for these immigrants, and arrest religious groups who leave such emergency supplies.

There's a Russian saying. "You walk, bullet hit you. You run, you hit bullet. Either way you take your chances."

[Darth Wedgius]

They bring their children because they don't want to leave their children behind in the circumstances that threaten their lives back home.

Yes, it is a dangerous trek through the desert. It's even more dangerous because US agents find and destroy cashes of water left for these immigrants, and arrest religious groups who leave such emergency supplies.

There's a Russian saying. "You walk, bullet hit you. You run, you hit bullet. Either way you take your chances."

Sorry, but there are a lot of places they could go that aren't home and don't require crossing a desert. Most of the recent caravan didn't accept the asylum offered by Mexico.

[Robovski]

If only there was some legal way to apply for asylum from somewhere safer, like a consulate, instead of Mad Maxing it through the desert. Bad enough the tourists dying in the Arizona desert, let aside the illegals. Maybe if there was a greater physical barrier, they might not attempt the desert at all.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

If only there was some legal way to apply for asylum from somewhere safer, like a consulate, instead of Mad Maxing it through the desert. Bad enough the tourists dying in the Arizona desert, let aside the illegals. Maybe if there was a greater physical barrier, they might not attempt the desert at all.

Ah yes. Y'all want to build a border wall to help the poor, bad-choice making illegal immigrants.

I'm not sure which disgusts me more, naked racism or this solemn-head-nodding, bony-finger-wagging "we're doing it for your own good" bullshit. I mean clearly you have a functioning human soul or you wouldn't try this hard to spin doctor and rationalize it.

What a shame that so many immigrants foolishly get themselves and their children killed by breaking the law. We are powerless to stop this and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with federal policy or poor conditions in detention centers. u_u Don't fight hate with hate!

[Robovski]

I cannot delete the post as it has been replied to, I made the incorrect assertion that Fuzzy made this post when it was Raven.

[G-Man]

To be fair, Robovski, Fuzzy Necromancer did not start this thread.

[Robovski]

To be fair, Robovski, Fuzzy Necromancer did not start this thread.

You know what, you are right. I'll remove my post.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Did some research and bought in a fairly solid and non-partisan source to shed light on this:
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-mete ... trol-took/

[LittleRaven]

Jakelin Caal Maquin, a 7-year-old girl from Guatemala, died early Dec. 8 at a hospital in El Paso, Texas. She was apprehended on the evening of Dec. 6 with her father for illegal entry as part of a group of 163 immigrants, about half a mile west of a port of entry in New Mexico, according to Customs and Border Protection.

...

Caal Maquin and her father were part of a second group that would be taken to Lordsburg. As that group was preparing to leave around 5 a.m. Dec. 7, Caal Maquin’s father reported that she "had become sick and was vomiting," immigration authorities wrote in the Facebook post.

Once the child arrived in Lordsburg, she was not breathing, and agents revived her twice. She was airlifted to a hospital in El Paso, Texas, and "the initial indication from the Providence Hospital is that she passed due to sepsis shock," the Facebook post said.

The timeline posted on Customs and Border Protection’s website adds that the child went into cardiac arrest at the hospital and was revived; that a CT scan revealed brain swelling; and that she was breathing by machine and diagnosed with liver failure.

One does not develop sepsis in 12 hours. If this source is accurate, then poor Jakelin was almost certainly VERY ill by the time she and her family surrendered to Border Patrol.

Felipe Gómez Alonzo is a different story. One can certainly develop flu in 3 days. But even there, it's not clear that anyone acted in bad faith.

It wasn’t until several days later in U.S. custody, on Dec. 24, that an agent "noticed that the child was coughing and appeared to have glossy eyes." The child and his father were transferred to a medical center, where hospital staff diagnosed the child with a common cold, the agency said. A later autopsy conducted by the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator indicated the child actually had the flu. The cause of death required further analysis, the office said.

Border Patrol noticed the child was sick, took the child to a doctor, and the doctor gave the wrong diagnosis. That's unfortunate and should be investigated, but again, assuming this source is accurate, I'm not sure what Border Patrol should have done differently.