WORLD NEWS | 8-year-old girl dies at Border Patrol detention facility in Harlingen, Texas, as agency seeks to ease overcrowding

HARINGEN, May 18 (AP) — An 8-year-old girl died Wednesday while in Border Patrol custody, authorities said, a rare situation as the agency battles overcrowding.

The child and her family are being held at a station in Harlingen, Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol’s parent agency, said in a statement. , which is one of the busiest corridors for illegal border crossing.

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The girl experienced a “medical emergency” and died after being taken to a nearby hospital, the statement said. The statement did not disclose her nationality or provide further information about the incident.

Miller said Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Internal Affairs will investigate and has notified the DHS inspector general and Harlingen police. sergeant. Harlingen Police Department spokesman Larry Moore said he had no information about the death.

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Court documents show Border Patrol detained 28,717 people on May 10, a day before pandemic-related asylum restrictions expired, double the number two weeks earlier. That number fell 23% to 22,259 by Sunday, still unusually high.

The average detention time on Sunday was 77 hours, five hours more than the maximum detention time allowed by agency policy.

Last week, Border Patrol began releasing immigrants in the U.S. without notifying them to appear in immigration court, and instead directing them to report to immigration offices within 60 days. The move relieves Border Patrol agents of time-consuming processing duties and allows them to free up space in detention facilities. A federal judge in Florida ordered the quick release halted.

Also last week, a 17-year-old Honduran boy who was traveling alone died in the custody of the US Department of Health and Human Services. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the body of content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)