McALLEN, Texas -- A little girl from Panama born with heart problems died in Border Patrol custody Wednesday, the second death of a child from Latin America in U.S. government custody in two weeks.
The 8-year-old girl and her family were being held in Harlingen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest corridors for migrant crossings. The Border Patrol's parent agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, has struggled with overcrowding at its facilities, spurred by a large increase in migrants ahead of the expiration last week of a key regulation on immigration linked to the covid-19 pandemic.
The girl experienced "a medical emergency" and emergency medical services were called. They took her to the hospital where she was pronounced dead, the agency said. An autopsy has been ordered.
The girl's name was Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, said Honduran Consul José Leonardo Navas, who is based in McAllen, Texas. He said she is from Panama, although her parents are from Honduras. The consul said she was traveling with her father, mother and two older siblings.
She was born with heart problems and was operated on three years ago in Panama, according to her father, who spoke with the consul.
Customs and Border Protection's internal affairs office will investigate the girl's death, and the Homeland Security Department's inspector general and Harlingen police have been notified, Customs and Border Protection said.
Her death comes a week after a 17-year-old Honduran boy, Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, who was traveling alone, died in U.S. Health and Human Services Department custody.
Also, earlier this year, a 4-year-old "medically fragile unaccompanied child from Honduras" died at a hospital in Michigan, Health and Human Services said in a statement Thursday. The agency said the child, who was in the care of the agency's Office of Refugee Resettlement, was taken to the hospital on March 14 following a "cardiac arrest event." She died three days later, the agency said.
In recent weeks the U.S. has struggled with large numbers of migrants coming to the border in expectation of the end of Title 42, a regulation that had curbed migration during the pandemic.
Last week, hundreds of migrants were held in open air on U.S. soil between two border walls in San Diego. Many subsisted for days on a limited Border Patrol diet of water and chips or granola bars and whatever volunteers or vendors passed through openings in the wall.
Pedro Rios, director of the American Friends Service Committee's U.S.-Mexico border program, said Thursday that portable bathrooms were too full to use, forcing migrants to relieve themselves outdoors. He said the Border Patrol told him to call 911 when volunteers encountered an 8-month-old child between the walls was "listless and vomiting." The camp has since been disbanded.
During the Trump administration, the deaths of children in U.S. custody became flashpoints of controversy, calling into question the administration's efforts to protect the most vulnerable migrants at a time when the U.S. was seeing a rise in the number of families with children coming to the southern border.
At least six children died during a roughly yearlong period from 2018 to 2019; they were held in either Border Patrol or Health and Human Services custody.
Information for this article was contributed by Elliot Spagat and Gisela Salomon of The Associated Press.
FILE - Migrants talk to officials along a road near the Rio Grande after crossing the Texas-Mexico border, Thursday, May 11, 2023, in Brownsville, Texas. An 8-year-old girl from Panama born with heart problems died Wednesday, at a Border Patrol station in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest corridors for migrant crossings, the second death of a child from Latin America in U.S. government custody in two weeks. In recent weeks the U.S. has struggled with large numbers of migrants coming to the border in expectation of the end of Title 42, a regulation that had curbed migration during the pandemic. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
FILE - Migrants use a raft to cross the Rio Grande at the Texas-Mexico border, Thursday, May 11, 2023, in Brownsville, Texas. An 8-year-old girl from Panama born with heart problems died Wednesday, at a Border Patrol station, in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest corridors for migrant crossings, the second death of a child from Latin America in U.S. government custody in two weeks. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)
FILE - Migrants are processed in a field after crossing the the Rio Grande at the United States-Mexico border, Thursday, May 11, 2023, in Brownsville, Texas. An 8-year-old girl from Panama born with heart problems died Wednesday, at a Border Patrol station , in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the busiest corridors for migrant crossings, the second death of a child from Latin America in U.S. government custody in two weeks. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)