Several Republican lawmakers grilled the Biden administration Thursday for its handling of young immigrants at the southern border after an 8-year-old became the third minor to die in federal custody so far this year.
An 8-year-old girl died in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody in Harlingen, Texas, the agency said Wednesday, noting the girl and her family were in custody when she “experienced a medical emergency,” the agency said without providing details.
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Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) accused the president directly of the fatal outcome, saying, “This child’s tragic death is on Joe Biden’s hands.”
“Rather than secure the border, he has incentivized one of the largest human trafficking crises in American history,” Boebert told the Washington Examiner. “If Joe Biden would have kept President Trump’s policies in place, built the wall, and stopped inviting illegal aliens into our country, this child could be alive today.
“Where is the outrage from Democrats who grandstand and pretend to care about illegal aliens?” Boebert said.
The 8-year-old girl was born in Panama, but her parents are from Honduras, according to a reporter who interviewed her parents, who remain in the United States while officials review their immigration cases. Her father said their daughter was born with heart problems.
The child’s death comes days after an unaccompanied Honduran 17-year-old housed at a Florida shelter died under the watch of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement on May 5, according to a notice from the agency.
In its notice, HHS also said a 4-year-old unaccompanied immigrant from Honduras died in the custody of the agency in mid-March, meaning at least three young immigrants have died in federal custody thus far this year. That child was described by HHS as “medically fragile” and had been admitted to the Bronson Methodist Hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit in Kalamazoo, Michigan, after a cardiac arrest event.
Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) acknowledged the recent death of the child at the Harlingen facility, saying he didn’t blame the personnel involved in handling the immigrants there but placed fault on the Biden administration’s policies “that are allowing a massive surge in the numbers to just continue to grow.”
“Any death at all is tragic. It’s obviously very hard on [federal agents] to see somebody in their custody pass away,” Pfluger told the Washington Examiner.
HHS had 8,681 unaccompanied minors in custody as of Wednesday. The number has risen up and down throughout the years and hit a peak of more than 14,000 during the surge of unaccompanied children in 2021.
At least six migrant children died in federal custody between 2018 and 2019 under the Trump administration, most of them in Border Patrol custody or soon after being released by the agency.
Young migrant deaths under the Trump administration sparked widespread criticism from immigration advocates and Democrats. On Thursday, Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus said it asked Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to provide a briefing on the death of the Panamanian girl.
“We have a fundamental duty to protect migrants in our care and custody. Any death is unacceptable,” the caucus said in a statement. “We cannot go back to 2019.”
But other Democrats have kept silent in the days since the two deaths were recorded this month. The Washington Examiner reached out to Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for response.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who recalled Mayorkas could not tell him during a March hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee the total number of migrants who died last year attempting to enter the U.S., said, “There is no excuse for the recent loss of life in government-run alien housing facilities.”
“The answer is 853, an all-time high,” Cruz told the Washington Examiner, adding, “Deaths like this are a tragedy and a devastating consequence of the Biden administration’s open border policies.”
Other GOP lawmakers didn’t hold back their anger and frustration over the recent string of deaths, including Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), who told the Washington Examiner, “These heartbreaking deaths are on President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas’s hands.”
“Since day one, the Biden administration has willfully created a national security and humanitarian catastrophe,” Clyde said, calling on Biden to support Republicans’ Secure the Border Act, which would adopt several provisions aimed at tamping surging numbers at the southern border.
At least 275,448 people were encountered at the U.S. border in April, up from 257,910 in March. Encounters have remained at all-time highs in the two years since President Joe Biden took office.
Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allowed the swift expulsion of 2.8 million immigrants for the past three years, lifted last week and was replaced primarily with enforcement under Title 8, which imposes stiff penalties for immigrants who enter the U.S. without a prior appointment with officials under the technology known as the CBP One app.
The Department of Homeland Security has touted border crossing down 56% from levels seen early last week, which averaged above 10,000 crossings per day before Title 42 ended Thursday night.
Title 8 procedures form a paper trail that Title 42 lacked and will impose a possible five-year ban on reentry for repeat offenses.
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“While we are encouraged by these early results, we are just in the first week of this transition from Title 42 to Title 8 authorities,” Blas Nunez-Neto, DHS assistant secretary for border and immigration policy, said this week.
Nunez-Neto said the numbers were moving in the right direction but that it’s “too early to draw any definitive conclusions.”
