Teen Arrested By Border Patrol Dies

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

The Border Patrol is back in the eye of the hurricane after a video was released featuring a Guatemalan teenager fighting for his life in one of the agency's detention cells in Weslaco, Texas. Part of the recording came out on Thursday night, in which Carlos Hernández Vásquez, 16, appears, dying on the ground for several hours before being found dead.

According to reports, the young man, who at the time suffered from a strong flu, collapsed near the toilet during the early hours of May 20, where he remained for more than four hours, until his cellmate woke up around 6 in the morning and found him lying on the floor without moving. Immediately the detainee alerted the officers, who resorted to a medical assistant who finally determined that the young man had died.

This incident adds to the wave of claims and questions regarding the treatment of migrants under the administration of current President Donald Trump, who approved the "zero tolerance" policy on the southern border of the United States.

For its part, through a statement, the agency commented that it could not discuss the details of the teenager's death due to an investigation, but that the Department of Homeland Security will investigate all aspects of the case to ensure that the procedures”.

However, according to ABC, ex-commissioner of the United States Customs and Border Protection Office, John Sanders, assured that the government could have done more to prevent the deaths of both Hernández and five other children who died after having been arrested by immigration agents.

"I really think that the American government has failed these people. The government has failed people like Carlos, "said Sanders. "I was part of that system at a very high level and Carlos's death will haunt me for the rest of my life."

Through the statement, the agency assured that three checks were carried out in Hernández's cell to ensure the well-being of the inmates during the early hours of his death. However, forensic pathologist Norma Jean Farley, who performed the autopsy on the young man, told the Propublica.org news site that he was informed that the agent only checked through the window, but never entered the cell.

"Not only did the CBP [United States Office of Customs and Border Protection] detain Carlos longer than the legal limit and apparently failed to care for him while he was ill, but the agency appears to have lied to Congress and the public about the circumstances of this tragic death,”Bennie Thompson, who chairs the National Security Committee, said in a statement.

The video shows that the young man stopped moving around 1:39 in the morning, about 15 minutes after falling face-first on the floor. Border patrol checkup records show that an agent visited the cell at 2:02, 4:09, and 5:05 in the morning.