US must spend $4.5bn to prevent more child migrant deaths at border, warns CBP

CBP’s acting commissioner blames rising number of deaths of child migrants in US detention on a lack of federal funding

Ed Pilkington in New York and agencies
Thu 20 Jun 2019 14.07 BST Last modified on Thu 20 Jun 2019 14.58 BST

More children may die in the detention of the US government unless Congress passes a $4.6bn emergency fund for immigration services at the US-Mexico border, the head of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has warned.

John Sanders, CBP’s acting commissioner, blamed the rising number of deaths of child migrants in US detention on a lack of federal funding to care for them, in an interview with the Associated Press.

Referring to the death last month of Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, a 16-year-old from Guatemala who contracted the flu but was kept on a concrete bench in a cell, the border patrol chief said: “The death of a child is always a terrible thing, but here is a situation where, because there is not enough funding … they can’t move the people out of our custody.”

At least seven migrant children have died in US custody since late 2018, as a combination of policies spearheaded by Donald Trump as part of his much-vaunted immigration crackdown have led to scenes of chaos and meltdown at the border. Children and families are being held for days longer than the 72 hours allotted in grossly overcrowded facilities in which medical provisions are scanty at best.

Outcry erupted this week after a migrant teen was found to be nursing her premature baby in a Texas border patrol facility without proper neonatal care. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas criticized Trump for showing disregard for families with children, saying “no human being should be held in the overcrowded and deplorable conditions that plague CBP holding facilities”.

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