An eight-year-old migrant girl has died in a Border Patrol station in Texas, United States of America (USA).
The girl who was from Panama and born with heart problems died on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, in Harlingen, a Texas border city near the Gulf of Mexico.
“The child and her family were in custody at the Harlingen Station where she experienced a medical emergency,” US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said in a statement.
“Emergency Medical Services were called to the station and transported her to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead,” the statement said, adding that an investigation was opened into the death.
An autopsy has been ordered, said Jesus T. “Chuy” Garcia, Jr., the local judge presiding in the case.
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 that 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 girls’ death in Texas, and the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general and Harlingen police have been notified, Miller said. Sgt. Larry Moore, a spokesman for the Harlingen Police Department, said he had no information about the death.
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.