On Wednesday, May 17th, 2023, an 8-year-old girl passed away while being under U.S Border Patrol custody in Texas.

A family member identified the girl as Anadith Reyes. She was a “happy girl” who was born with a heart condition in Panama to Honduran parents.

In Harlingen, near the border with Mexico, the child and her family were in custody at the Border Patrol station. According to a statement from U.S Customs and Border Protection (CBP), she had a “medical emergency.” From there, CBP stated that the girl was rushed to a nearby hospital where she was unfortunately pronounced dead. 

Anadith had been taken several times to be checked out by authorities while in custody. Furthermore, she had “shortness of breath”  and she “wasn’t feeling well again.”

“We no longer have her in this world,” Santos stated as she had gotten emotional when her sister called. Santos

would go on to state that Anadith had recently “not been feeling well” and tested positive for the flu.

“They left her there in the waiting room, and that’s where the girl died”, Santos said.

The Office of Professional Responsibility is currently investigating the incident, which is standard protocol after an in-custody death.

Worryingly, a federal judge in Florida has blocked the administration from releasing migrants into the U.S. without a court date. Immigration officials had expressed their concerns about this and stated that holding migrants longer could lead to unsafe conditions for them.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Donald Trump invoked Title 42 in the spring of 2020, in which migrants would be returned over the border, and denied the right to seek asylum, which resulted in U.S. officials turning away migrants more than 2.8 million times. However, there were no real consequences when someone illegally crossed the border, so migrants could have multiple attempts to get into the U.S.

However, there is a new concern due to Title 42 restrictions expiring, and due to this, there can be strict consequences for those who can illegally cross, such as not being allowed to return for five years, as well as being able to face criminal prosecution if they do.