2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15
Days after the death of the Guatemalan immigrant boy Felipe Alonzo Goméz, 8, his family breaks the silence. The little boy died on Christmas day while in the custody of the United States CPB (Office of Customs and Border Protection).
"We heard rumors that they could move [to the United States]. They said they could go with the children,” Catarina Gómez Lucas, 21, the boy's stepsister, told the Associated Press, explaining why his father had taken him on that dangerous journey from Central America.
Lucas added that Agustin thought that taking Felipe to the United States would give him a better "chance" of life. They left with little clothes, a new pair of shoes and all the money they had. She added to AP that they were escaping the poverty of their town.
"[Felipe] always wanted a bicycle," Catarina added. According to the Prensa Libre newspaper, father and son were detained on December 18 after crossing the border in El Paso, Texas. They were then transferred to Alamogordo, New Mexico, where Felipe died.
His mother, Catarina Alonzo Perez, told Prensa Libre that she wanted the child's remains returned. "I need to see him soon and I am very sad because he has passed away," she said. The mother said the boy was in good health when he left. "He was not sick, here he was not sick," he assured.
When Agustín called on December 25 to tell the family that the boy had died, he told them that the boy had been playing with other children but had complained of feeling bad and having a stomach ache, his stepsister told AP. She added that the boy had asked the father not to cry because he was going to get better.
On Monday, Felipe and Agustin were taken to the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo when a border patrol agent noticed that the boy was ill. At first, the doctors thought it was a common cold but then noticed that it had a fever. After prescribing the antibiotic amoxicillin and Ibuprofen, they released him from the hospital but the boy returned after nausea and vomiting to the medical center, and died there after midnight. An autopsy revealed he had influenza, but the cause of his death is still under investigation, the AP reported.
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