Deaths on the Border -- While in U.S. Custody

Since December, five children have died at Border Patrol stations along the U.S.-Mexico border, reports Nomaan Merchant at the Associated Press. The latest was a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant who died yesterday, and whose cause of death remains unknown. It remains unclear why he was detained for a week rather than placed in a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services facility within 72 hours, as federal law requires.

All five migrant children who passed away in U.S. custody in the past year were from Guatemala, “an impoverished Central American nation that has been wracked by severe drought and gang violence, and where smugglers have been offering discount rates to families interested in traveling to the United States,” writes Abigail Hauslohner at The Washington Post.

KJ