Patterico's Pontifications

5/20/2019

US NEWS: Another 16-Year-Old Migrant Child Has Died in Government Custody

Filed under: Immigration — DRJ @ 9:52 pm



[Headline from DRJ]

US News: Another 16-Year-Old Migrant Child Has Died in Government Custody

The report notes that five children have died since December and all were from Guatemala.

— DRJ

29 Responses to “US NEWS: Another 16-Year-Old Migrant Child Has Died in Government Custody”

  1. This Trump person is more trouble than he’s worth.

    nk (dbc370)

  2. Sorry. Wrong thread.

    nk (dbc370)

  3. Not a migrant. Not a child.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  4. Life is a privilege not a right. freedom and liberty are an illusions. 2020 election survival of the fittest!

    lany (80232a)

  5. That’s extremely tragic.

    Dustin (6d7686)

  6. What is missing are the details. What did the child die of is one of the most important questions that should be addressed. When I read an article, I pay more attention to what the writer left out than what information was provided.

    Michael Keohane (947544)

  7. Not a migrant. Not a child.

    NJRob (4d595c) — 5/20/2019 @ 10:35 pm

    Huh?

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  8. What is missing are the details. What did the child die of is one of the most important questions that should be addressed. When I read an article, I pay more attention to what the writer left out than what information was provided.

    Michael Keohane (947544) — 5/21/2019 @ 4:41 am

    you seem to be implying that the writer is hiding something from the reader. Way down in the 9nth line they say “The cause of the boy’s death is unknown, CBP said.”

    Time123 (69b2fc)

  9. Smuggled through coyotes who more likely than not, have no connection to the child.

    Narciso (e1656b)

  10. It may be unknown because the federal government, following bureacratic rules, hasn’t released any information, but they did release that a 16-year old boy died, also following bureacratic rules,..

    He was diagnosed with the flu. That may not be a full explanation. The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry (which must have been kept informed) said he died of a “severe infection in the frontal lobe” of the brain.”

    He was picked up by the border patrol on April 19, and transferred to the Southwest Key Casa Padre shelter in Brownsville, on the evening of April 20 (Easter Sunday) He became noticeably ill
    with fever, chills and a headache on the morning of April 21, 2019 before he’d had a chance to be given the standard doctor’s examination.

    He was brought to a hospital that morning (April 21) and released later that day but since he didn’t get better, he was brought to a different hospital, (APril 22) and later transferred to a children’s hospital in Texas, according to a statement to CBS News by Evelyn Stauffer, a spokesperson for the Administration for Children and Families, which oversees ORR, She woukdn’t name the hospital, but the Guatemalan Foreign Ministry said it was Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Driscoll, Texas, where he underwent surgery “to stabilize the pressure inside the head area.”

    “Following several days of intensive care, the minor passed away at the hospital on April 30, 2019,” the Administration for Children and Families statement said. The boy’s death was first reported by Buzzfeed.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  11. The dishonesty. It burns. “In government custody” implies a jail cell, or a squad room, or the back of a police car in handcuffs. The kid was in a hospital, and had been there for a month.

    nk (dbc370)

  12. nk (dbc370) — 5/21/2019 @ 6:22 am

    The kid was in a hospital, and had been there for a month.

    He was in two different hospitals from April 22 to April 30, (8 days) when he died. Like with all these other cases, the general public only found out days or weeks later.

    He was also in a hospital emergency room on April 21 (Easter Monday) but, as hospitals often do, they gave him some medicine maybe and sent him back. They took him to adfferent hospital he next day.

    He was first picked up on April 19, and was transferred to a shelter in Brownsville, Texas run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement on the evening of April 20 (Easter Sunday for most Christians)

    Nobody noticed anything wrong but they did the next morning. He hadn’t yet had a chance to get his routine medical examination which they get upon entry.

    There’s another factor in not catching this sooner, if it was possible to catch this sooner.

    There may have been a partial language barrier, both at the shelter and at the first hospital. He was from Guatemala. Many of the migrants from Guatemala come from an Indian-language speaking part of the country that is now being de-populated. (I think about half the population has left) It could be that he didn’t even speak Spanish. Many of those people from isolated Indian areas don’t, or don’t speak it too well, although they may pretend to, and try to get along in Spanish, because they think it will help them get into the United States.

    And there are different Indian languages that they speak.

    So it is hard to get interpreters. So they may have been dealing with someone they couldn’t talk to, unless they used other migrants, but if there’s one, there should be others, including some who speak Spanish well. So they use them as interpreters but that isn’t good for official purposes.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  13. I think we are talking about two dofferent 16-year old boys from Guatemala.

    The first story I looked at:

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/16-year-old-unaccompanied-migrant-boy-dies-in-us-custody-officials-said-today-2019-05-01/

    …was about the boy who was in the hospital from April 22 to April 30 and I just noticed
    that the story is dated May 1.

    There is another CBS story about the other boy, who died now. This one never got into a hospital. : It was this one who got diagnosed with the flu.

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/16-year-old-unaccompanied-migrant-boy-dies-in-us-custody-officials-said-today-2019-05-01/

    There was also an NBC story.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/16-year-old-migrant-boy-dies-u-s-custody-5th-n1007751

    Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez was found unresponsive Monday morning during a welfare check at Weslaco Border Patrol Station, a CBP official familiar with the case said in a Monday afternoon teleconference.

    He had been transferred to the station Sunday from the Rio Grande Valley Sector’s Central Processing Center, the official said.

    Early Sunday, Carlos told staff at the processing center that he was not feeling well and a nurse practitioner assessed him and determined he had influenza A, the official said. Carlos was prescribed the medicine Tamiflu for treatment, which Border Patrol agents picked up from a local pharmacy, the official said.

    CBS says:

    Hernandez Vásquez was taken into custody after crossing the southern border in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley on May 13, among a group of 70 people, according to the agency. He was held at a processing facility for six days before being transferred Sunday to the Border Patrol station in Weslaco, where he spent his final day.

    Unaccompanied minors are typically transferred from Border Patrol to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within 72 hours. However, processing of Hernandez Vásquez’s transfer did not begin until May 16. The official did not indicate what caused the delay.

    etc.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  14. The 16-year old boy from Guatemala who died on April 30 was third migrant child to die while in custody since December. The boy who died now was the 5th.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  15. We don’t know how many got hospitalized and did not die, nor how many people 18 years old and older got sick and died. Without that, you can start to develop theories as to why children are not diagnosed soon enough and why it doesn’t happen to adults (although young children both come down more and fight infections better.)

    The reason they are counting only since last December is that, before that, it had been more than 10 years since someone under 18 died in ICE custody. (it helped, I suppose, that they didn;t hold too many)

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  16. Five out of how many tens of thousands who have passed through ICE custody?

    How does this compare against a control population of kids dragged across thousand of miles of hostile terrain by adults who may or may not be their actual parents who are gaming the system?

    Munroe (a6c620)

  17. Five out of how many tens of thousands who have passed through ICE custody?

    How does this compare against a control population of kids dragged across thousand of miles of hostile terrain by adults who may or may not be their actual parents who are gaming the system?

    Munroe (a6c620) — 5/21/2019 @ 8:04 am

    very pro-life of you.

    Time123 (b0628d)

  18. I guess we are going to have this running scorecard of every migrant who dies en route to a better job in the US.

    How many deaths per capita occurred in previous administrations?

    Patricia (3363ec)

  19. “very pro-life of you.”
    Time123 (b0628d) — 5/21/2019 @ 8:23 am

    Very red herring of you.

    Munroe (3d416a)

  20. Calling him a child is no different than the media calling Trayvon Martin a child and showing a prepubescent picture of him. Calling him a migrant is a lie as he illegally entered the country and was properly detained. He was given medical treatment the envy of the world and still died.

    Pure manipulation by the media to try and create a false sympathy towards the invasion on our southern border.

    P.S. Biologically, once you enter puberty you are no longer a child.

    NJRob (4d595c)

  21. NJ Rob,

    mi·grant
    /ˈmīɡrənt/
    noun
    1.
    a person who moves from one place to another, especially in order to find work or better living conditions.

    child
    /CHīld/
    noun
    a young human being below the age of puberty or below the legal age of majority.
    synonyms: immigrant, emigrant, incomer, newcomer, asylum seeker, settler, expatriate, expat, exile; More

    I bolded the part of the definition of Child you seem to have a problem with.

    He was given medical treatment the envy of the world and still died

    The linked article doesn’t tell us anything about his quality of care. Can you share what else you’ve found?

    Time123 (b53270)

  22. @Time123. Like me and some others, you messed up a little bit in the cutting and pasting. the synonms you have for child are the synonyms for migrant. Migrant is the right word.

    The 3rd one to die may have received care at some point that was the envy of the world because he spent time in an intensive care unit, had an operation etc, although that is asmptom of failure also. The 5th one was just found dead, or nearly dead, one morning, after having been given Tamiflu for his condition. So that wasn’t good.

    There have been, to use a ballpark figure, maybe 100,000 people under 18 who passed through ICE detention since late last year, and five of them have died, two of them teenagers, apparently of some unknown or undiagnosed infections. It could be the problem is too much caution in using antibiotics.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  23. It could be the problem is too much caution in using antibiotics.

    Hospitals. They never should have the kids to a hospital. More people die in hospitals than anywhere else.

    nk (dbc370)

  24. have *taken* the kids

    nk (dbc370)

  25. I see quickly that the 8-year old boy and the 7-year old girl both had some bacterial infection in addition to the flu. In the 7-year old girl, the bacteria was pf a type that is called streptococcal sepsis or group A strep.

    It is possible that being confined in close quarters with other people helps in the spread f this disease. It may be some other factor, like the flu, or a wound helps ths infection along.

    Here is a case history of strep – a common infection (7.3 million a year) with something going badly wrong in 1,200 cases or so a year (or 1 in 6,000 – 0.06%) and of them 10-14% dying.

    https://rorystauntonfoundationforsepsis.org/1225/every-day-health-death-by-strep-one-familys-tragic-loss/

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  26. * something going badly wrong in 1,200 cases or so a year

    No make that 10,000 to 12,000 – it’s 10% to 14% of that number who doe.

    It’s one in 750 or so who get into a dangerous situation, about 0.015% and around one on eight of those die, so approximateely 1 out of every 6,000 cases altogether or 0.00167%

    It afflicts about 2% of the population per year.

    Sammy Finkelman (db7fea)

  27. The sort of headline wordcraft you’ll never see in US News:
    “Another Illegal Immigrant Shielded from Deportation Charged with Murder”
    “Another Unaccompanied Immigrant Minor Charged with Gang Violence”

    Munroe (af62ec)

  28. I think there are lessons in this report, especially that all these children were from Guatemala. Parts of Guatemala are suffering from years of drought leading to food shortages that “have resulted in poor harvests, lost labor opportunities and reduced household incomes, making it more difficult for vulnerable families to access enough nutritious food.” As a result, some of them are probably coming to America. Starving children are more likely to get sick and die, often suddenly, but it is hard to spot which ones are most at risk when virtually all are suffering.

    It is a tragedy but I don’t know anything we can do differently or better.

    DRJ (15874d)

  29. I think it is terribly sad that these children and teens have died but when you consider the number of illegals coming across the border daily I’m surprised that more don’t come up sick. What I find so disgusting is how it is the U.S.’s fault that the child got sick in the first place and died. It seems to me that the medical care and attempts to save their lives were provided by the government and they likely picked up their illness on their trek across Mexico. Yet we, and not the parents for putting their child at risk, get the fault. It isn’t like the U.S. inoculated them with a flu virus, no they gave them medicine and tried to save them. It makes good headlines I guess.

    I just had a friend who lost a baby to meningitis. Where is the outrage for this child? Oh wait, born American citizen…. privileged, no headlines. Who cares. (sarcasm for those that don’t pick up on such things.)

    Marci (405d43)


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