Shocking video has emerged of a flu-ridden 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant writhing in pain on the floor of a U.S. Border Patrol cell where...
Shocking video has emerged of a flu-ridden 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant writhing in pain on the floor of a U.S. Border Patrol cell where he lay for several hours before he was found dead.
The footage published by ProPublica shows the last hours of Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, who died on May 20.
He is one of at least six children to have died since December 2018 after being detained by border agents.
Hernandez had been seen smiling and laughing as he illegally crossed the Rio Grande hours before he was detained by US Customs and Border Protection.
According to ProPublica, Hernandez staggered to the toilet in his cell in the middle of the night at the Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas, and collapsed nearby. He remained still for more than four hours until his cellmate awakened at 6.05am and discovered him on the floor.
Carlos Hernandez Vasquez was seen staggering around his cell before collapsing near the toilet
The cellmate quickly got the attention of a Border Patrol agent, followed shortly by a physician's assistant who attempted a single chest compression after finding he had no pulse.
Weslaco police reports obtained by ProPublica say the physician's assistant quickly determined Hernandez was dead.
President Donald Trump has faced withering criticism for the thousands of family separations it conducted under a 'zero tolerance' policy at the southern border and the squalid conditions under which it detained parents and children earlier this year.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a statement Thursday saying it could not discuss specifics of the teen's death due to an ongoing investigation, but that the agency and the Department of Homeland Security 'are looking into all aspects of this case to ensure all procedures were followed.'
But CBP's former acting commissioner, John Sanders, told ProPublica he believed the U.S. government 'could have done more' to prevent the deaths of Hernandez and at least five other children who died after being apprehended by border agents.
'I really think the American government failed these people. The government failed people like Carlos,' Sanders said. 'I was part of that system at a very high level, and Carlos' death will follow me for the rest of my life.'
The Guatemalan government on Thursday issued a statement saying Hernandez´s death remained under investigation and that a 'legal process' is ongoing. The statement did not address the details of the video or the reports of how he was found dead.
The Border Patrol's statement on the day of Hernandez's death says the teenager was 'found unresponsive this morning during a welfare check.'
The video shows Hernandez stopped moving at about 1.39am on May 20, 15 minutes after he toppled forward and landed face-first on the cell's concrete floor. Border Patrol logs say an agent performed a welfare check at 2.02am, 4.09am, and 5.05am.
Dr. Norma Jean Farley, the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, told ProPublica that she was told the agent looked through the window but didn't go inside.
Police photos show a large pool of blood around the teenager's head.
It comes after video emerged of Hernandez smiling and laughing on a raft as he illegally crossed the Rio Grande hours before he was detained by US Customs and Border Protection [CBP] agents, a week before his death.
A human trafficker sent footage to the youngster's family back home in Guatemala as proof that the teenager was on his way to the U.S.
Vasquez was detained by CBP agents in south Texas's Rio Grande Valley on May 13 after 'coyotes', or human traffickers, ferried him across the Rio Grande and into US territory.
He was held at the Centralized Processing Center in McAllen and told staff on Sunday that 'he was not feeling well'. He was seen by a nurse, who determined he had the flu and was prescribed Tamiflu.
He was then transferred to the Weslaco Border Patrol Station to avoid other detainees getting sick but was not hospitalized before he was found unresponsive in his cell.
Vásquez's brothers, who live in New Jersey, told Univision that they were not informed of of his death until 36 hours after he had passed.
'What I wanted was to talk to him to assure myself if he was okay,' said the dead teen's brother, whose name was not provided by Univision for safety concerns.
'But they simply gave me a simple report [stating] that he was fine and that he was on his way to a shelter. We did not know (more about him until his death).'
Bartolomé Hernández recalled his son as someone who wanted to extend a helping hand to his 18-year-old brother Edgar René, who has cognitive disabilities.
'He left happy, seeking the betterment of his life, the father of seven said as his voice trailed off amidst tears.
The migrant teen's mother said her son did not show any signs of sickness when decided to leave the family behind to chase the American Dream.
She, like the rest of the family, is seeking answers.
'He left healthy. He was not (sick). If he was sick, he would have not left. What I want is justice,' Gilberta Vásquez said.
Last week Wilmer Josué RamÃrez Vázquez, a two-year-old boy from Guatemala, died at a hospital in Texas after he and his mother were detained by border patrol.
In April, Juan de León Gutiérrez, a 16-year-old boy from Guatemala, died after staff at an HHS facility noticed he was sick and transferred him to a hospital.
After the December 2018 deaths of two other Guatemalan children, Jakfflelin Caal MaquÃn, aged seven, and Felipe Gómez-Alonzo, aged eight, the Department of Homeland Security ordered medical checks of all children in its custody and expanded medical screenings.
Sanders resigned in June as the Border Patrol was detaining thousands of people at a time, many for longer than the agency's own 72-hour deadline, sometimes for weeks on end. As border crossings surged this spring, President Donald Trump's administration sought to hold people for longer to end what it derided as the 'catch and release' of immigrant families.
But the Border Patrol was not equipped to detain people for that long. Reports of people jam-packed into cells without drinkable water or showers sparked national outrage. One group of lawyers that visited a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, described seeing hungry children trying to care for each other and one 4-year-old with matted hair who had gone without a shower for days.
The Border Patrol has since reduced the number of people in its custody -- largely due to the rollout of policies such as 'Remain in Mexico,' in which the U.S. government has sent more than 55,000 people back across the border to await their court cases. Thousands of those people are now waiting in squalid border camps.
In a statement, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, called the CBP's behavior in the child's death 'inexcusable.'
'Today's report calls into serious question the steps U.S. Customs and Border Protection claims to have taken to care for a child in its custody. Not only did CBP hold Carlos longer than the legal limit and apparently fail to care for him while he was sick, the agency seems to have been untruthful with Congress and the public about the circumstances around his tragic death,' Thompson said.
Thompson called for the Homeland Security Department's inspector general examine all video related to the child's case and release the findings 'as soon as possible.'
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