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      Federal judge blocks Biden administration’s restrictive asylum rule

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      A federal judge on Tuesday blocked a rule that allows immigration authorities to deny asylum to migrants who arrive at the US-Mexico border without first applying online or seeking protection in a country they passed through.But the judge delayed his ruling from taking effect immediately to give the Joe Biden White House time to appeal.The order from judge Jon Tigar of California’s northern federal district takes away a key enforcement tool set in place by the Biden administration as coronavirus-based restrictions on asylum expired in May. The new rule imposes severe limitations on migrants seeking asylum but includes room for exceptions and does not apply to children traveling alone.In an order that will not take effect for two weeks, Tigar wrote “the rule … cannot remain in place”, in part because it improperly presumes people who enter the country between legal border crossings are ineligible for asylum.The justice department said it would seek to prevent the judge’s ruling from taking effect and maintained the rule was lawful.Immigrant rights groups that sued over the the rule applauded the judge’s decision.“The promise of America is to serve as a beacon of freedom and hope, and the administration can and should do better to fulfill this promise, rather than perpetuate cruel and ineffective policies that betray it,” American Civil Liberties Union attorney Katrina Eiland, who argued the case, said in a statement.The administration had argued that protection systems in other countries that migrants travel through have improved. But Tigar said it was not feasible for some migrants to seek protection in a transit country and noted the violence that many face in Mexico in particular.He also wrote that the rule was illegal because it presumes that people are ineligible for asylum if they enter the country between legal border crossings. But, Tigar wrote, Congress expressly said that should not affect whether someone is eligible for asylum.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s staff has said the asylum rule is a key part of its strategy to balance strict border enforcement while ensuring several avenues for migrants to pursue valid asylum claims. According to Customs and Border Protection, total encounters along the southern border have gone down recently. More

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      DoJ sues Texas governor over refusal to remove anti-migrant buoys from river

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      The US Department of Justice has sued the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, over his refusal to remove a floating barrier placed on the Rio Grande to stop migrants entering the US from Mexico.The move is the latest in a growing political spat between Abbott and the Biden administration, heightened by Republican attempts to scaremonger over immigration as the 2024 presidential election looms.The lawsuit filed by the federal government asks a court in Texas to force the state to remove the roughly 1,000ft line of bright orange, wrecking ball-sized buoys the Biden administration says raises humanitarian and environmental concerns.The suit also says Texas unlawfully installed the barrier without permission, near the border city of Eagle Pass.The suit was filed on Monday, after Abbott refused to comply with instructions to remove the barrier.“Texas will fully utilise its constitutional authority to deal with the crisis you have caused,” Greg Abbott wrote to Joe Biden in a letter reported by CNN and other outlets.“Texas will see you in court, Mr President.”It was the latest confrontational move by a governor who for more than two years has escalated measures to stop migrants entering the US, pushing legal boundaries along the 1,200-mile border with Mexico.Blowback over the tactics is widening, including from within Texas and particularly in light of a state trooper’s account of razor wire leaving asylum seekers bloodied and officers denying migrants water in 100F (37.7C) heat and being told to push children into the river.Last week, the US justice department told Texas to remove the river barriers, citing federal laws against obstructing waterways and imposing a Monday deadline. On Monday, Abbott said that in refusing to comply, he was “assert[ing] Texas’s sovereign interest in protecting [its] borders” in his role as the “commander-in-chief of [the] state’s militia”.Repeating a common Republican talking point, the governor also wrote to Biden: “If you truly care about human life, you must begin enforcing federal immigration laws. By doing so, you can help me stop migrants from wagering their lives in the waters of the Rio Grande.”Saying migrants could attempt to use legitimate ports of entry, Abbott said: “While I share the humanitarian concerns noted in your lawyers’ letter, Mr President, your finger points in the wrong direction. Neither of us wants to see another death in the Rio Grande … Yet your open-border policies encourage migrants to risk their lives by crossing illegally through the water, instead of safely and legally at a port of entry. Nobody drowns on a bridge.”A White House spokesperson said Abbott’s behavior was “ making it hard for the men and women of border patrol to do their jobs of securing the border and putting both migrants and border agents in danger”.Biden’s border enforcement plan, the spokesperson added, had “led to the lowest levels of unlawful border crossings in over two years. Governor Abbott’s dangerous and unlawful actions are undermining that effective plan.“If Governor Abbott truly wanted to drive toward real solutions, he’d be asking his Republican colleagues in Congress why they voted against President Biden’s request to increase funding for the Department of Homeland Security and why they’re blocking the comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures that would finally fix our broken immigration system.”The White House also said Republicans “have no plan and are just playing political games”.Criticism of Abbott is growing within his own state.Speaking to the Associated Press, David Donatti, an attorney for the Texas American Civil Liberties Union, said: “There are so many ways that what Texas is doing right now is just flagrantly illegal.”Aron Thorn, a Texas Civil Rights Project attorney, described “a very strong correlation” between Abbott’s border policy and “the Trump and post-Trump era in which most of the Trump administration’s immigration policy was aggressive and extreme and very violative of people’s rights and very focused on making the political point.“The design of this is the optics and the amount of things that they sacrifice for those optics now is quite extraordinary.”In Eagle Pass, Jessie Fuentes, a kayaker, has filed his own lawsuit over work done on the river. On Monday that suit, Epi’s Canoe & Kayak Team v State of Texas, was cited in the suit filed by the federal government.Citing measures including floating barriers and shipping containers and razor wire placed along riverbanks cleared of vegetation, Fuentes recently told the Eagle Pass city council: “The river is a federally protected river by so many federal agencies, and I just don’t know how it happened.”A member of the Eagles Pass council, Elias Diaz, told the AP: “I feel like the state government has kind of bypassed local government … and so I felt powerless at times.”Hugo Urbina, a farmer whose land abuts the river, said he supported efforts to reduce border crossings via the Rio Grande. But Urbina said Abbott and his administration “do whatever it is that they want … breaking the law and … making your citizens feel like they’re second-hand citizens”.The Texas land office has said it will permit “vegetation management” on the banks of the river as part of anti-migration efforts. The state military department has cleared out carrizo cane, which the land office has called an invasive plant. Environmental experts are concerned changes to the landscape will affect the flow of the river.Tom Vaughan, co-founder of the Rio Grande International Study Center, said: “As far as I know, if there’s flooding in the river, it’s much more severe in Piedras Negras” – on the Mexican side – “than it is in Eagle Pass because that’s the lower side of the river.“And so next time the river really gets up, it’s going to push a lot of water over on the Mexican side, it looks like to me.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Another bus with dozens of migrants from Texas arrives in Los Angeles

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      Another bus carrying asylum seekers arrived in downtown Los Angeles from a Texas border city early on Saturday, the second such transport in less than three weeks.The bus, which arrived at about 12.40pm at Los Angeles’s Union Station from Brownsville, Texas, held 41 people including 11 children who were with their families, according to a statement from the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (Chirla).The busload of people were welcomed by a collective of faith and immigrants’ rights groups and transported to St Anthony’s Croatian Catholic church, where they were given water, food, clothing, medical checkups and initial legal immigration assistance.The office of Los Angeles’ mayor, Karen Bass, was not formally notified but became aware of the bus on Friday, said Zach Seidl, a spokesperson for Bass, in a statement.The asylum seekers came from Cuba, Belize, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela. According to a statement from Chirla, most of those on the bus are seeking to reunify with family members or sponsors. Six of them need to fly to Las Vegas, Seattle, San Francisco and Oakland, said Jorge-Mario Cabrera, a spokesperson for Chirla.Cabrera said the group “was less stressed and less chaotic than the previous time”, referring to the busload of people who arrived at the same major transit hub on 14 June. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, claimed responsibility for that move in a tweet that read: “Small Texas border towns remain overrun & overwhelmed because Biden refuses to secure the border”.Abbott has not mentioned the latest bus – and an attempt to contact him was not immediately returned – but posted figures in a tweet on Saturday that claimed the Texas national guard and state troopers have “apprehended more than 386,000” asylum seekers. “While Biden ignores the border crisis, Texas is stepping up to fill the gaps he created,” Abbott said.Bass tweeted: “Los Angeles believes in treating everyone with respect and dignity and will continue to do so.”Bass said that after she took office last year, she directed city agencies to begin planning for a possible scenario in which LA “was on the receiving end of a despicable stunt that Republican governors have grown so fond of”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Chirla and our partners in Los Angeles are organized and ready to receive these asylum seekers when they get here,” said Angélica Salas, Chirla’s executive director, in a statement. “If Los Angeles is their last destination, we will ensure this is the place where they get a genuine and humane reception.”Earlier in June, the state of Florida picked up three dozen migrants in Texas and sent them by private jet to California’s capital, catching shelters and aid workers in Sacramento by surprise. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, held Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, responsible for the flights of asylum seekers, which came in two waves, and appeared to threaten to file kidnapping charges after the first incident in which a group of migrants was dumped at a Sacramento church. More

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      Family of eight-year-old girl who died in US border patrol custody ‘want justice’

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      Shortly before the funeral on Saturday for an eight-year-old girl who died while she detained by the US border patrol in Texas and stricken with influenza, her relatives vowed to pursue justice in her case so “nobody has to go through this” again.“We will let our baby rest and hope that she rests in peace,” the family of Anadith Reyes Álvarez said in a statement, obtained by the Spanish-language news network Univision. “We want justice for her and that nobody has to go through this.”The statement from Anadith’s family came hours before her loved ones expected to bury her on Saturday at a cemetery in New Jersey. Anadith’s family and other loved ones had grieved her at a wake in her honor held on Friday in New York City.Anadith died on 17 May on what her mother, Mabel Álvarez Benedicks, has said was the family’s ninth day in border patrol custody at a detention facility in Harlingen, Texas.The girl had reportedly been diagnosed with influenza, had recurring fever that would spike as highly as 104.9F (40.5C), and was complaining about having difficulty breathing. She also had bone pain and could not walk, according to what Álvarez has said to the Associated Press as well as information released by authorities.Yet, Álvarez has said, personnel at the detention facility insisted that she did not need hospital care, and she only received saline fluids, fever medication and a shower. A nurse practitioner reported denying as many as four requests from Anadith’s mother to call an ambulance for the girl.Anadith eventually lost consciousness, went limp and was pronounced dead after being brought to a hospital without any detectable vital signs.Álvarez has acknowledged that Anadith had a history of heart problems and sickle cell anemia, yet her family has maintained that she was healthy when she arrived at the detention center. Meanwhile, Univision reported that a preliminary border patrol investigation found that medical staff who treated Anadith as her illness worsened failed to check health records documenting her conditions.The US Customs and Border Protection agency on Thursday transferred out its chief medical officer in response to Anadith’s death. David Tarantino is expected to begin temporary work next week at the federal Department of Homeland Security, which houses Customs and Border Protection.The non-profit organizations Texas Civil Rights Project and Haitian Bridge Alliance are advocating for Anadith’s family and assured that they have helped commission an independent autopsy to determine the girl’s cause of death.“What happened to Anadith was a tragedy based on negligence,” the Texas Civil Rights Project attorney Kassandra González said in a statement provided to Univision.The director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, Guerline Jozef, added that Anadith’s death “could have been prevented if her and her mother’s requests for medical attention would not have been ignored”.Anadith was a national of of Panama, and her parents are from Honduras. Her death came a week after Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza – a teenager from Honduras – died near Tampa, Florida, while detained at a US health department facility for unaccompanied children.Officials have said they believe Ángel died as a result of an epileptic seizure. Staff at the facility where Ángel was detained had records of his history of epilepsy but did not read them, officials have said, according to reporting from the Tampa Bay Times.Both Anadith and Ángel died amid a rush to the border before the expiration of Covid-19 asylum limits known as Title 42 brought extraordinary pressure on the outdated, underfunded US immigration system.An arguably tougher immigration policy replaced what was in place before the lifting of Title 42. More

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      Migrants flown from Texas to California and left outside church were ‘lied to’

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      A rights group has said 16 migrants had been “lied to” and deceived after being transported from Texas to California and dropped off outside a church in Sacramento.The migrants from Venezuela and Colombia entered the US through Texas, reported the Associated Press. They were flown to California from New Mexico via a private chartered plane, but it’s unclear who paid for the travel.The California department of justice and the California governor’s office is currently investigating who paid for the travel and “whether the individuals orchestrating this trip misled anyone with false promises or have violated any criminal laws, including kidnapping”.Eddie Carmona, campaign director at PICO California, a faith-based community organizing group that has been assisting the migrants, said they had been processed by US customs and provided court dates for asylum hearings when individuals claiming to represent a private contractor approached them outside a migrant center in El Paso, Texas, with the promise of offering jobs and assistance.“They were lied to and intentionally deceived,” Carmona told the AP, adding that the migrants had no idea where they were after being dropped off in Sacramento.Over the past year, the Republican governors of Texas and Florida have been bussing and flying immigrants without advance to cities controlled by Democratic party elected officials. The actions have been criticized as political stunts to criticize the Biden administration’s border policies. Florida governor Ron DeSantis established a $12m migrant relocation program in 2022 funded from interest accrued on federal Covid-19 relief funds. More

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      Texas’s use of ‘invasion’ clause against immigrants is racist and dangerous, rights groups say

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      Texas is challenging federal control of policy on the US-Mexico border by exploiting what it sees as a constitutional loophole around the definition of an “invasion” but that migrants rights activists see as dangerously ramping up fears with racist language.Immigration policy has long been under the purview of the US federal government – not individual states – since the US supreme court ruled so in a landmark United States v Arizona case in 2012.But in November of 2022, rightwing Republican governor Greg Abbott invoked the “invasion” clauses found in the Texas and US constitutions, likening migrants at the border to a public foreign enemy that therefore gave him the power to enact his own border policies.The Texas Civil Rights Project called the move a “political ploy”.“Calling immigrants an invasion is extremely dangerous,” said Roberto Lopez, senior advocacy manager for the organization’s “Beyond the Border” program.Lopez added: “We have seen so many shootings and more rise in hate crimes [against migrants.] This is all connected to this rhetoric of associating people who are trying to seek safety with being like a literal attack on the United States. That is just giving a lot of fire and energy to militia groups and people who are filled with hate.”Abbott is already seeking to take Texas border control into his own hands, as evidenced by the state’s recent announcement of a new “border force” that could allow its agents to “arrest, apprehend or detain persons crossing the Texas-Mexico border unlawfully”, if it gets past the state legislature. And with a conservative-majority in both the Texas state house and senate, that likelihood is high.Abbott has made his interpretation of the “invasion clauses” clear. At the time of announcing his border force, Abbott said: “I invoked the Invasion Clauses of the US and Texas Constitutions to fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion.”“I’m using that constitutional authority, and other authorization and Executive Orders to keep our state & country safe.”But the legal language Abbot is citing is not that simple, according to Barbara Hines, a law professor at the University of Texas and founder of its law school Immigration Clinic.Hines called the state’s justification for creating its own immigration laws “unprecedented and extreme”.“Federal immigration law is a federal issue. It’s not based on the Texas constitution,” Hines said.Article four of the Texas constitution states: “[The governor] shall be Commander-in-Chief of the military forces of the State, except when they are called into actual service of the United States. He shall have power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the State, to suppress insurrections, and to repel invasions.”Abbott argues the increase of migrants at the border merits drastic actions such as establishing a state police force specifically to rein in immigration.Migrant rights groups say people crossing the border – many of whom are seeking to legally claim refugee status – does not constitute an invasion. Instead, they say such language is racist and inflammatory. In 2019 a white supremacist attacked a Walmart in El Paso, seeking to kill Latinos and fueled by anti-immigration rhetoric. The gunman killed 23 people.Many legal scholars believe rightwing arguments over the invasion clause in the Texas constitution are neutralised by the supremacy clause in the US constitution. That states that “the federal constitution, and federal law generally, take precedence over state laws, and even state constitutions,” according to Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute.But in the US constitution, the word “invasion” is mentioned twice: once in article one, section 10 and again in article four, section four. That gives Abbott, and some rightwing activists, hope that their arguments might prevail on a conservative supreme court.In the first instance, the US constitution specifically limits the power of states to keep troops, like Operation Lone Star a border force, unless invaded..
      “No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.”
      When invasion is mentioned for the second time, the constitution more broadly says that the federal government is responsible for protecting its states against an invasion.
      “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
      Hines explained that although the word “invasion” is mentioned twice in different contexts, “there’s this theory of law that the same term or word in the constitution, should mean the same thing [if repeated].” The key question is likely to be whether or not “invasion” in this context means solely by another state or armed force.Abbott’s policies, like his potential border force and the existing initiative Operation Lone Star, are already being questioned as illegal by civil rights groups others. They have faced legal challenges by civil rights advocacy groups and an investigation by the US Department of Justice.If such a case against Texas materializes and moves up through the courts – especially all the way up to the US supreme court – it’s possible the US will have to revisit the question of who gets to control the border.Some say that’s exactly what Texas lawmakers in favor of state control of the border want, especially as the current supreme court is dominated by hardline conservative judges.Texas’s far-right attorney general Ken Paxton said as much in a senate committee hearing on the subject:“We’re in unchartered territory as far as knowing what states can do because states have never had to wonder or really test this,” Paxton said. “So, I think part of this is going to be, we’re going to have to figure out where are the areas that we want to test. And that’s part of why I’ve been saying for two years, we should test U.S. v Arizona. We should test to see if the states can protect themselves, given the circumstances we’re in that we’ve never been in before.”Hines said: “This supreme court has not respected precedent in other situations, for example, in the abortion case. And this state legislature has been willing to pass unconstitutional laws to test them.”“I am hopeful that as conservative as the supreme court is that they’re going to respect precedent. It is unheard of that states could enforce federal law as to who is entering the United States without permission and who is not, and to create a state trespass law for people entering the United States that has been in sole federal power since the late 1800s.” More

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      ‘I feel safe here’: the people leaving everything behind to seek refuge in US

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      The US homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, has a message for migrants that he has been repeating loudly and frequently: “Our border is not open … don’t risk your life and your life savings” to come to the US seeking refuge without invitation.But for millions, hunger, violence and fear ring out louder. Political dysfunction and economic calamity are pushing people from many nations in the western hemisphere in what Joe Biden has called the “largest migration in human history”, exacerbated in Latin America and beyond by the coronavirus pandemic.People with tenacity but few means make a hopeful journey mostly across land towards the US-Mexico border. If they beat the odds to reach American soil they may find harbor – or more heartbreak.Yesi Ortega choked up when talking to the Guardian at a shelter in El Paso, west Texas, earlier this month, as she recounted the odyssey she, her husband Raphael López and their five-year-old son, Matías, had spent six months making.The family had reached a tipping point in their native Venezuela and followed more than 7 million other citizens who have fled the country’s economic collapse and pervasive hunger when their choice came down to food or clothing, Ortega, 24, said.“We had no option. We needed to take the risk,” she said. Like almost a third of this exodus, they first tried nextdoor Colombia, itself unstable and contributing amid the post-pandemic hardship to the latest rise in migration towards the US.Ortega found work in a restaurant kitchen and López labored in a plastics factory in Medellín. But they were paid less, as migrants, the equivalent of $35 a week between them, when a staple such as milk was $3 a liter and the rent was crippling, she said.When they failed to get legal status and couldn’t access the healthcare system or school for Matías, like many others they left Colombia for the US.They survived the slog and danger of walking through the hellish Darién Gap jungle into Panama and trudged through Central America and Mexico, fraught with risk, especially for foreigners migrating on a shoestring.The family didn’t use human smugglers, Ortega said. She recounted how, along the way, they were mugged twice at gunpoint, slept under torrential rains and endured cold nights, leapt on to freight trains when they could, worked temporary jobs and begged for money to buy food, water and bus tickets to relieve the trek whenever possible.Eventually, they reached Ciudad Juárez, across the Mexican border from El Paso. After all that, Matías then broke his right arm while playing. But the family pressed on and went to Door 40 in the towering border barrier to turn themselves in to federal border patrol agents.At first they were separated. Ortega and Matías were taken and held in New Mexico while López, 27, was sent to a detention center 85 miles away in Tornillo, which became known in the Trump administration for holding unaccompanied migrant children in detention camps.They were released after about a week of what they described as cold, uncomfortable conditions and managed to reunite and find a shelter in El Paso. Last week the three traveled to Chicago, where they had a contact address, to await their interview with the immigration authorities in June to find out if they will be allowed to go through the full asylum system in the US – or be deported.The family entered the US before the Title 42 pandemic-related rule was lifted on 11 May, which had blocked many from requesting asylum while allowing some families with young children to do so. After that block ended, the Biden administration nevertheless brought in a “presumption of ineligibility” for asylum for people who simply turn themselves in at the border. This has enraged immigration advocates, who call the new restriction an asylum ban. No matter what, the dice are loaded against Ortega and her family if the authorities conclude they are economic migrants.Around the corner from the shelter, fellow Venezuelan José Ocando, 28, was sleeping on the ground in an alley on a thin mat with some blankets.He had also been living in Colombia, with his wife, but was tracked down by members of a gang who told him his impoverished mother back in Venezuela had a debt outstanding and said they would kill them both if they didn’t pay up.“We left everything from one day to another. There was no time to figure out why these people wanted me to pay a debt I didn’t even know about,” he told the Guardian.They fled and took buses to Monterrey in northern Mexico. There they were within geofencing range to access the US government’s app, CBP One on a smartphone, to request a US asylum appointment.They tried every day for a month but couldn’t get an appointment, Ocando said. So they went to Matamoros, where the Rio Grande infamously claims lives and on 11 May produced scenes of frightened young children, some roped together and with little inflatable rings to stop them from drowning, clinging to their parents on the muddy riverbank as others waited up to their necks in the river, all on the wrong side of razor wire with gun-toting US troops beyond.Ocando and his wife made it across safely, although he was detained and expelled back to Mexico, while his wife was allowed in. She traveled to Utah to join an uncle – as those claiming asylum must give an address to the authorities – and after Ocando traveled the length of the Texas-Mexico border, he was allowed into El Paso.Now he’s found a part-time job carrying blocks on a construction site and is saving for a bus ticket to join his wife as they also await an asylum interview.“It’s been difficult, but I feel safe here,” he told the Guardian.Meanwhile, Fabiola Cometán, 45, also felt protected on US soil after decades of physical abuse by her two former partners, she said.The last straw was receiving a death threat from one of her sisters in their native Peru recently over a debt, going to police and being ignored and then threatened by three men who came to her door demanding the money be paid, she said.Before leaving Lima to join a small group of mostly Venezuelan migrants traveling together for safety overland to the US, she had to decide which of her children to take with her.She thought of the hazards of the Darién and the danger of extortion and sexual assault in Mexico, she said.She sobbed as she said she took her six-year-old son and left her nine-year-old daughter behind with another sister, to protect her from the greater risk of being raped or kidnapped.“My heart broke into pieces, but I had to leave her to come here and find a better opportunity for all of us,” she said.She plans to make her way to New York and go through the asylum process there. Her son, Luis, talked excitedly of going to school and one day seeing snow.
      Joanna Walters contributed reporting More

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      Mother of girl who died in US border patrol custody says agents ignored her

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      The mother of an eight-year-old girl who died in US border patrol custody said on Friday that agents repeatedly ignored pleas to hospitalize her medically fragile daughter as she felt pain in her bones, struggled to breathe and was unable to walk.Agents said her daughter’s diagnosis of influenza did not require hospital care, Mabel Alvarez Benedicks said in an emotional phone interview. They knew the girl had a history of heart problems and sickle cell anemia.“They killed my daughter, because she was nearly a day and a half without being able to breathe,” Alvarez Benedicks said. “She cried and begged for her life and they ignored her. They didn’t do anything for her.”The girl died on Wednesday on what her mother said was the family’s ninth day in border patrol custody. People are to be held no more than 72 hours under agency policy, a rule that is violated during unusually busy times.The account is almost certain to raise questions about whether the border patrol properly handled the situation, the second death of a child in federal officials’ custody in two weeks after a rush of unlawful border crossings severely strained holding facilities.Roderick Kise, a spokesperson for the border patrol’s parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, said he could not comment beyond an initial statement because the death remained under investigation. In that statement, Kise’s agency said the girl experienced “a medical emergency” at a station in Harlingen, Texas, and died later that day at a hospital.Alvarez Benedicks, 35, said she, her husband and three children, aged 14, 12 and eight, crossed the border to Brownsville, Texas, on 9 May. After a doctor diagnosed the eight-year-old, Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez, with influenza, the family was sent to the Harlingen station on 14 May. It was unclear why the family was held so long.Anadith woke up her first day in the Harlingen station with a fever and had a headache, according to her mother, who said the station was dusty and smelled of urine.When she reported her daughter’s bone pain to an agent, she said he responded: “Oh, your daughter is growing up. That’s why her bones hurt. Give her water.”“I just looked at him,” Alvarez Benedicks said. “How would he know what to do if he’s not a doctor?”She said a doctor told her the pain was flu-related. She asked for an ambulance to take her daughter to the hospital for breathing difficulties but was denied.“I felt like they didn’t believe me,” she said.Anadith received saline fluids, a shower and fever medication to reduce her temperature, but her breathing problems persisted, her mother said, adding that a sore throat prevented her from eating and she stopped walking.At one point, a doctor asked the parents to return if Anadith fainted, Alvarez Benedicks said. Their request for an ambulance was denied again when her blood pressure was checked on Wednesday.An ambulance was called later that day after Anadith went limp and unconscious and blood came out of her mouth, her mother said. She insists her daughter had no vital signs in the border patrol station before leaving for the hospital.The family is staying at a McAllen, Texas, migrant shelter and seeking money to bring their daughter’s remains to New York City, their final destination in the US.Anadith, whose parents are Honduran, was born in Panama with congenital heart disease. She received surgery three years ago that her mother characterized as successful. It inspired Anadith to want to become a doctor.Her death came a week after a 17-year-old Honduran boy, Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, died in US health and human services department custody. Maradiaga traveled alone.A rush to the border before Covid-19 asylum limits known as Title 42 expired brought extraordinary pressure. The border patrol took an average of 10,100 people into custody a day over four days last week, compared to a daily average of 5,200 in March.The border patrol had 28,717 people in custody on 10 May, one day before pandemic asylum restrictions expired, which was double from two weeks earlier, according to a court filing. By Sunday, the custody count dropped 23% to 22,259, still historically high.Custody capacity is about 17,000, according to a government document last year, and the administration has been adding temporary giant tents like one in San Diego that opened in January with room for about 500 people.On Sunday, the average time in custody was 77 hours. More