A Guatemalan migrant boy dies after weeks in US hospital: NPR

A Guatemalan child died Tuesday night at a hospital, a little over a month after he and his mother crossed the southwestern border and were apprehended, according to Guatemala's consul in Del Rio, Texas.

The family entered the United States from the border town of Juárez, Mexico, in early April. They were arrested on April 3 on the north shore of the Rio Grande, in downtown El Paso, Texas, according to the US Customs and Border Protection.

The consul of Guatemala, Tekandi Paniagua, told NPR that the 2 and a half-year-old boy "had a high fever [and] difficulty breathing. "

A customs officer and border patrols informed of the case said the mother had informed federal agents that her son was ill after their arrest. The official said the child was taken by ambulance that day to a local hospital where he was diagnosed with pneumonia and then transferred the next day to a children's hospital in El Paso.

"It has worsened in the space of a month," said Paniagua, adding that the consulate was formally waiting for a cause of death before returning the body of the child to Guatemala.

"The Guatemalan Consul in Del Rio repeats that it is a very dangerous journey and that children are the most vulnerable," Paniagua said.

The mother and child were released from the United States after the boy was admitted to hospital. The mother of the child remains in the United States while awaiting the settlement of his immigration file, according to the head of the agency.

The boy is the fourth Guatemalan miner to die after crossing the border and being apprehended by the Border Patrol since December. The deaths of migrant children have prompted US immigration authorities to increase medical checks of juveniles detained along the country's southwestern border.

In December, seven-year-old Jakelin Caal Maquin died of a bacterial infection known as streptococcal sepsis two days after being detained with her father. Felipe Gómez Alonzo, eight years old, died on Christmas day. Like Maquin, he was in custody at CBP when he died of a complicated flu sepsis.

Last month, a 16-year-old boy died in a children's hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, less than two weeks after he was detained and transferred to a children's home center under contract with him. Refugee Resettlement Office. It was finally determined that the cause of death was a brain infection.

According to CBP data, a record number of asylum-seeking families crossed the US-Mexico border in April. More than 58,000 family members were apprehended.