The child who died in US Border Patrol custody was identified as a migrant from Honduras, the country’s foreign minister said on Friday.
The tragic death happened at a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facility in Harlingen, Texas, just 15 miles from the border with Mexico.
The Honduran government identified the victim as 8-year-old Anadith Tanay Reyes Álvarez, who traveled north through Central America and Mexico with her parents and two brothers.
After arriving at Harlingen on Wednesday, Álvarez had a ‘medical emergency,’ CBP said in a statement.
‘We offer our sincere condolences to his family and demand a thorough investigation of this case,’ Honduran Foreign Minister Enrique Reina said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Reina said the Honduran government spoke to Álvarez’s father at the Honduran consulate in McAllen, Texas, and they would be closely following the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) investigation into the the death.
Reina also said the Honduran government would ‘work bilaterally with the United States to pay special attention to cases involving minors and prevent these tragedies from occurring.’
No further details have been released about the nature of the child’s medical emergency.
Álvarez’s death comes only a week after a 17-year-old Honduran migrant died in Florida.
The teenager, identified as Ángel Maradiaga, reportedly died from an epileptic seizure in a migrant holding center in Safety Harbor, Florida.
His mother in Honduras, Norma Saraí Espinoza Maradiaga, said her son had suffered from epilepsy since he was eight, but the condition was not life-threatening.
‘The longest a seizure would last was less than a minute,’ Espinoza Maradiaga said. ‘It seemed like it only hit him a little.’
The two deaths have been the first two underage migrants to die in CBP custody during Joe Biden’s presidency.
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