Health vow as migrant boy dies in US custody
Print Edition
Migrant children will receive more thorough medical checks after an 8-year-old Guatemalan boy died in US custody this week, the US government said, as his mother expressed grief and despair over his death.
Felipe Gomez Alonzo, who died on Monday, and his father, Agustin, 47, came from the western municipality of Nenton in Huehuetenango province, Guatemalan Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Marta Larra said. The pair trekked to the Mexico-US border, joining thousands of others who have left their remote area.
Gomez, from a family of indigenous Maya, was the second child to die this month in US custody after crossing from Mexico, following the December 8 death of Jakelin Caal, a 7-year-old girl also from Guatemala.
鈥淚鈥檓 sad and in despair over the death of my son,鈥 said the boy鈥檚 32-year-old mother, Catarina Alonzo.
The latest fatality prompted sharp criticism from some Democrats, and US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced policy changes on Wednesday aimed at preventing future deaths of children in custody.
Family pushes for autopsy
All children in Border Patrol custody have been given a 鈥渢horough medical screening,鈥 and moving forward all children will receive 鈥渁 more thorough hands-on assessment鈥 as soon as possible after being apprehended, whether or not the adult with them asks for one, Nielsen said in a statement.
Gomez鈥檚 parents, who speak a Maya language called Chuj and little Spanish, have requested an autopsy be done as quickly as possible so their son鈥檚 body can be repatriated to Guatemala, Larra said. The results are expected in about a week.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency has not released an official cause of death.
Most families in Nenton, a mountainous area near the Mexican border, are of indigenous origin and subsist on corn and beans, as well as money sent back from relatives working in the US and Mexico.
Huehuetenango sends the highest number of migrants abroad from Guatemala every year, Larra at the foreign ministry said.
Nielsen said the death of migrant children in US custody is rare, adding that in the fiscal year ending September 30, six migrants had died in CBP鈥檚 auspices, none of whom were children. The last child death was more than a decade ago.
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