Yesterday, officials from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finally admitted that a 10-year-old Salvadoran girl in their custody died in September 2018. Her name was Darlyn Valle.
Although too many details are still unknown, Darlyn had somehow traveled from El Salvador to Texas, where she was detained by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBS News reported that
Mark Weber, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said in a statement to CBS News that the girl had a history of congenital heart defects. Weber said when she entered the care of an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) facility in San Antonio, Texas, on March 4, 2018, she was in a "medically fragile" state.
"Following a surgical procedure, complications left the child in a comatose state. She was transported to a nursing facility in Phoenix, Arizona for palliative care in May after release from a San Antonio hospital," Weber said. "On September 26, she was transferred to an Omaha, Neb., nursing facility to be closer to her family. On September 29, the child was transported to Children's Hospital of Omaha where she passed due to fever and respiratory distress."
Weber’s story just doesn’t add up. How long was this child in CBP custody before being transferred to ORR? And under what inhumane conditions did they detain her? Why did they transfer her from the huge state of Texas to Arizona? Why not to somewhere in Texas or directly to Omaha?
And why did the Trump administration lie and cover up Darlyn’s death?
Darlyn Valle is now the first known to have died in federal custody while Trump’s monstrous administration has been keeping kids in cages. I continue to emphasize “known” because Trump and his administration so routinely lie.
Here’s the list of children now known to have died in U.S. custody:
- Darlyn Valle — a 10-year-old Salvadoran girl who was detained in Texas and died on Sept. 29, 2018 in Nebraska
- Jakelin Caal Maquin — a 7-year-old Guatamalan girl who was detained in New Mexico and died on Dec. 8, 2018 in an El Paso, TX hospital
- Felipe Gómez Alonzo — an 8-year-old Guatamalan boy who was detained in New Mexico and died there on Dec. 24, 2018
- Juan de León Gutiérrez — a 16-year-old Guatamalan boy who was detained near El Paso, TX and died in a Brownsville, TX hospital on April 30, 2019
- Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez — a 2-year-old Guatamalan boy who was detained in El Paso, TX and died there on May 14, 2019
- Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez — a 16-year-old Guatamalan boy who was detained in McAllen, TX and died in Weslaco, TX on May 20, 2019
At the processing center in McAllen, where temperatures have been in the 90s during the day and in the 70s at night this week, “adults and children are housed together in chain-link fence enclosures and given mats to sleep on.” Cages and mats.
Yes, you read that right — sometimes, they’re penned under a bridge.
In statement Monday, Astrid Dominguez, director for the American Civil Liberties Union Border Rights Center decried the conditions for migrants at CBP and Border Patrol facilities and called for “more than an investigation.”
“…We’ve received complaints from migrants about inhumane conditions, prolonged detention, lack of shelter, poor medical attention and abuse from agents,” she said in the statement. “This agency is long overdue for reform. We need more than an investigation, children ought to be protected. CBP needs to hire child welfare and medical professionals to humanely receive and process all arriving families.”
How many more migrant children will die in U.S. custody because of Trump and his administration’s monstrous immigration policies and practices?