Migrants walks along the border fence before surrendering to U.S. Border Patrol agents, in Yuma, Ariz., on May 10, 2023. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg)
An 8-year-old girl held at a Border Patrol station in South Texas has died after a medical emergency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement late Wednesday.
The child was detained with her family at the Harlingen station in the Rio Grande Valley, the sector of the border that has seen the highest number of migrant crossings in recent weeks.
No information about the child’s nationality was immediately available.
“Emergency Medical Services were called to the station and transported her to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead,” CBP said in a statement.
The agency’s internal affairs division, the Office of Professional Responsibility, is conducting an investigation into the incident, according to CBP.
The child’s death appears to be the first in CBP custody in several years. Unaccompanied minors and families with children who are detained after crossing the border are generally prioritized over adult migrants for quicker processing by CBP.
The Biden administration ended the practice of holding families in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers in 2021.
But a record-setting migration surge has stretched U.S. stations and temporary facilities beyond capacity along the southern border. CBP was holding about 30,000 migrants at one point last week, more than three times its stated capacity. Since then, the number has dropped to about 20,000.
The Biden administration lifted the pandemic border-control policy known as Title 42 on May 11. Administration officials had predicted a significant increase in illegal crossings when the policy lapsed, but the average number of migrants taken into custody after crossing the border per day has dropped from more than 10,000 to about 4,400, according to the latest government data.
A federal judge in Florida recently blocked the Biden administration from releasing migrants into the United States without a court date as an emergency measure to ease overcrowding in border stations. Biden administration officials said the ruling could lead to unsafe conditions for migrants and U.S. agents.
Families have been crossing the border in higher numbers in recent months. About 59,000 migrants crossed as part of a family group in April, a 28 percent increase from March, according to the latest CBP figures, which were published Wednesday.
