The parents of the 8-year-old immigrant girl who died in Border Patrol custody on Wednesday said in an interview with Noticias Telemundo that the child died "on the floor" of the immigration station and not in a hospital — as authorities claim — that agents "did not heed" their pleas for help and that they were not allowed to travel in the ambulance where they transferred her to the emergency room.
"I was going to get into the ambulance and they wouldn't let me in because she was already dead. They put me in a patrol car," said Adela Alvarez, mother of Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez. "They didn't attend to her at any time. It was just a serum he was given. My daughter was slowly dying until she ran out of breathing."
Adela Alvarez and Rosendo Reyes, the girl's father, crossed the Rio Grande on May 9 to the United States with Anadith and two other minor children. The Honduran couple said that at the time the girl, who suffered from heart problems from birth, "was happy because a doctor was going to treat her. And he told me: 'Now mommy, I'm going to be able to go to school, I'm not going to get tired, because we've already arrived in a safe country, we're going to get a doctor, they're going to take care of me,'" his mother said.
Anadith Tanay Reyes, 8, died in Border Patrol custody.
The family was held in custody for nine days at the Harlingen Station in Texas, although immigration protocols provide for stays of no more than 72 hours for detained immigrants.
The child was diagnosed with influenza on May 14 and began to suffer severe shortness of breath at the station. But the family said that despite showing officers evidence of his heart disease, their concerns were ignored. "One of the guards told me, 'What she has is pure growth. She's growing, give her water," Alvarez said. "I didn't think my daughter was going to be killed in detention."
Noticias Telemundo contacted U.S. Customs and Border Protection about these allegations. A spokesman, who did not respond directly to them, said an investigation is ongoing and referred to the agency's statement issued Wednesday, which reports that the child suffered a "medical emergency" and was taken to a hospital, where "she was pronounced dead."
"My daughter died in my arms"
"I watched my daughter's death," her mother told Noticias Telemundo. "My daughter died in my arms. Don't say she went to the hospital, because when my daughter came to the hospital, she was dead." His father also said that "when they called the ambulance it was late."
I wanted to be a doctor because since she was already operated she said 'mommy, I want to help other children who have suffered just like me'
Adela Alvarez mother of the girl
The couple, who demand "justice" for the death of the girl, have pointed to the doctors and officials of the center of pocesamiento of "negligence", assuring that in the days they were detained they asked several times for help, without being heard.
"They didn't listen to me or my daughter," said the mother, who said the girl repeated that she could not breathe. "An officer said, 'How are you going to tell me you don't breathe if you're talking? Someone who doesn't breathe doesn't speak.' But she told them, I'm gathering a little bit of strength to tell you that I don't breathe," he said.
That May 17, after asking for help several times, he said they received "looks of annoyance" and "discrimination." Until the girl got worse and fainted, according to her account. "They took her from me, they put her on the floor, they started to revive her, a little blood came out of her mouth," the mother explained. Then, an ambulance would arrive.
The couple also criticized the sanitary conditions of the migrant station, at a time when it has been reported that these centers are operating above their capacities after the arrival of more migrants than they can accommodate.
The girl who died in Border Patrol custody was Panamanian of Honduran parents
May 18, 202302:03
Fernando García, director of the Border Network for Human Rights, based in El Paso, criticized these centers in an interview with Noticias Telemundo and also the immigration management of the Joe Biden Administration.
"The only thing we have built on the border as infrastructure are not welcome centers, they are not shelters, they are jails and jails where there is no necessary medical attention. There are no doctors, no nurses, no medicines. So we believe this incident of the girl who died in Harlingen is the prelude," Garcia said.
Harlingen Station, where the family was detained, is a 50,000-square-foot facility that was completed in 2000 and is located in an agricultural and livestock area, according to the official CBP website. It serves more than 1,200 square miles of the southern border and is about 30 miles from McAllen, in the Rio Grande Valley, one of the corridors where more irregular crossings are recorded.
"I wanted to be a doctor"
The family traveled to the United States in search of a "better life" and medical care for Anaditha. It was also because of their health, they said, that they were cautious in the five months it took them to traverse Mexico. They walked slowly and avoiding the sun. Nor did they get on trains because "we didn't want to expose it" and "when we crossed the river we thought we were in a safe place."
[The young Honduran who died in a shelter was epileptic. They say he didn't report it]
Anadith was gentle, smiling, outgoing and caring. He wanted to be a doctor, his parents said. "I wanted to be a doctor because since she had already been operated on, she said: 'Mommy, I want to help other children who have suffered just like me.' "Poor people," the father added.
Their children are their strength, the couple said. "My two children and my daughter who is dead right now, because I know that she is giving me strength to stand and that I ask for justice for every breath they took from her."
"We don't want the baby to be cremated"
The family remains in Texas and refuses to leave the state without their daughter's body. "I want all the documents, the names of the doctors who treated her, the officers who were there," demanded the mother, who asked to obtain the recordings of the center's security cameras. "All those cameras are good there."
He also asks for help in getting the body to New York, the destination of his months-long journey from Central America. " We don't want the baby to be cremated," her mother said, "we want her whole body."
Anadith was of Panamanian nationality although her family comes from Honduras.
"I don't ask for it for me. Please do it for my daughter, who died little by little," he lamented. "All night carrying her to breathe. But they didn't care. They killed my daughter. I want justice."
Anadith wasn't their only child: The couple was also detained in Texas with their two other children: a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old. The boy remained with the father while the teenager was in a separate cell, they said.
"My two children are unwell," said the mother, adding that the children miss their sister and do not want to eat. They repeat that "they do not understand that in a safe place they killed her."