The mother of the 8-year-old girl who died after a “medical emergency” in U.S. Border Patrol custody in Texas said officials ignored repeated pleas from her family to hospitalize the girl, who had existing health problems and was experiencing pain and difficulty breathing.
The girl, Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, died Wednesday. She was from Panama and was traveling with her parents, who were from Honduras, and two older siblings, Honduran Consul José Leonardo Navas told The Associated Press. They were in custody at Harlingen Station in the Rio Grande Valley, minutes from the border with Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said emergency medical services were called and took the girl to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Roderick Kise, a spokesperson for the agency, said he could not comment beyond the initial statement because the death was the subject of an open investigation.
The girl’s mother, Mabel Alvarez Benedicks, told The Associated Press in an interview that agents knew the girl had a history of sickle cell anemia and heart problems, including an operation three years ago.
PREVIOUSLY:8-year-old girl dies in Border Patrol custody in Texas, officials say
Mother: Agents said daughter did not require hospital care
Alvarez Benedicks said agents told her that her daughter’s diagnosis of influenza did not require hospital care, despite the family’s pleas for more treatment. Alvarez Benedicks said her daughter’s bones were in pain, she couldn’t walk, and she struggled to breathe.
“They killed my daughter, because she was nearly a day and a half without being able to breathe,” she said. “She cried and begged for her life and they ignored her. They didn’t do anything for her.”
Alvarez Benedicks said Anadith had a fever and headache, and when she reported the girl’s bone pain to an agent, he said the mother should give her water and that the pains were because she was growing up. She asked for an ambulance but was denied, she said.
“How would he know what to do if he’s not a doctor?” Alvarez Benedicks said.
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Anadith was given saline fluids and fever medication, but her mother said her fever persisted and she stopped eating and walking. Another request for an ambulance was denied, Alvarez Benedicks said, even as a doctor asked the parents whether Anadith had fainted.
It wasn’t until Anadith went limp, became unconscious and had blood coming out of her mouth that emergency medical services were called, according to her mother.
Anadith wanted to be a doctor when she grew up, her mother said, inspired by her successful heart surgery.
Alvarez Benedicks, 35, said it was the family’s ninth day in custody, though an agency policy that goes unheeded during busier times says migrants are not held more than 72 hours. The mother said she, her husband and their three children – 14, 12 and 8 – crossed into the United States on May 9. The child was diagnosed by a doctor with influenza and the family was then sent to Harlingen Station on May 14.
2nd death of a child this month in custody
Anadith was the second migrant child to die in custody this month. A week before her death, a 17-year-old unaccompanied Honduran migrant died in U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ custody after being found unconscious at a shelter in Safety Harbor, Florida, according to a statement from Honduran officials and a congressional notice obtained by CNN.
Earlier this year, a 4-year-old child from Honduras who was “medically fragile” and unaccompanied died at a hospital in Michigan, Health and Human Services said. She died in March after a “cardiac arrest event” and was in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement.
Contributing: N’dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY; The Associated Press