Monitoring desk
\nwashington
\nThe United States will take \u201cextraordinary\u201d protective measures to deal with a surge of immigrant children in custody, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has said after a second Guatemalan child died in custody.
\nNielsen plans to travel later this week to the Mexico border region to witness medical screenings and conditions at Border Patrol stations, she said in a statement Wednesday, as Congress and President Donald Trump remain deadlocked over his demands for billions of dollars to fund a wall along the border.
\n\u201cIn response to the unprecedented surge of children into our custody, I have directed a series of extraordinary protective measures,\u201d she said in a statement after the \u201cdeeply concerning and heartbreaking\u201d death of the child.
\nNielsen has asked experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate \u201cthe uptick in sick children crossing our borders\u201d and to identify what further steps border hospitals should take in preparation, her statement said.
\nNielsen added that she has asked the US Coast Guard medical corps to assess and \u201cmake appropriate recommendations\u201d about Border Patrol medical programs, and has sought additional medical professionals from the Department of Defense.
\nUS Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan warned Wednesday that the agency was unable to cope with the thousands of arrivals, as most facilities were built decades ago for men arriving alone.
\n\u201cWe need help from Congress. We need to budget for medical care and mental health care for children in our facilities,\u201d he told CBS News.
\nEight-year-old Felipe Gomez, who collapsed after running a fever, had traveled with his father Agustin Gomez from the indigenous Chuj Maya community of Nenton, in western Guatemala\u2019s Huehuetenango department, near the Mexican border.
\nHe was among almost 25,000 migrant children in US custody, according to McAleenan — the greatest number ever recorded.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s an enormous flow. That\u2019s very different from what we\u2019ve seen before,\u201d he said, adding that the onset of the flu season was putting further pressure on health care services.
\nIn the last two months, Border Patrol has apprehended 139,817 people on the southwest border, compared with 74,946 during the same period a year earlier, Nielsen said.
\nMore than 68,500 were \u201cfamily units\u201d while almost 14,000 others were unaccompanied children, she said, and the system has been pushed to \u201cbreaking point.\u201d
\nAugusto Mendoza, a Guatemalan migrant in El Paso with his one-year-old son, told Media he would \u201cnever\u201d consider making the journey again.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s been very, very hard. I would never think about doing it again, I regret it for my son,\u201d said Mendoza, who was separated from his wife at the border and released from detention on Christmas Day.
\n– \u2018Increasing\u2019 medical challenges –
\nDHS officials said all children in border patrol custody would be given a thorough medical screening, reaffirming McAleenan\u2019s commitment to \u201csecondary medical checks\u201d with a focus on those under 10.
\nAnd Guatemala has called for an investigation into the boy\u2019s death, which came just three weeks after a seven-year-old girl from the country died in similar circumstances.
\nGomez was detained with his 47-year-old father at a crossing in El Paso, Texas, on December 18 and had been transferred to a New Mexico medical center showing signs of sickness on Monday, the CBP said.
\nStaff diagnosed him with a cold but later discovered a fever. He was discharged at midday, with prescriptions for ibuprofen and the antibiotic amoxicillin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Monitoring desk washington The United States will take \u201cextraordinary\u201d protective measures to deal with a surge of immigrant children in custody, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has said after a second Guatemalan child died in custody. Nielsen plans to travel later this week to the Mexico border region to witness medical screenings and conditions at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42581,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n