A 32-year-old man from El Salvador died Thursday at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility in Lordsburg, New Mexico, becoming one of at least 10 undocumented immigrants this year, several of them children, who have died while in the custody of U.S. immigration officials.
According to CBP, he was pronounced dead early Thursday after being detained by border patrol agents in El Paso, Texas, Wednesday night. While undergoing processing at the New Mexico facility, the man “fell into medical distress,” CBP said in a statement Thursday. “Attempts to revive the individual were unsuccessful.”
The agency would not be releasing the identity of the man at this time, a spokeswoman for the CBP told HuffPost Friday.
A spokesman for El Salvador’s embassy in Washington also would not confirm the identity of the man but said that “forensic personnel are verifying the causes of the death.”
The man had been traveling with his 8-year-old daughter, who was also detained in El Paso. She is being transferred to a shelter in Clint, Texas, and authorities have contacted the girl’s mother, the spokesman added.
The Trump administration has faced scrutiny over the increasing deaths of undocumented immigrants while in U.S. immigration custody, as well as over inhumane conditions at border detention facilities.
Yet last month, President Donald Trump praised the Border Patrol for doing “an incredible job” and claimed that the overcrowded and squalid facilities are “run beautifully” and are “clean” and “good.”
Border officials have faced several lawsuits related to the treatment of migrants under government custody. In June, attorneys sued the federal government for the “deplorable” conditions children endured in the border facilities.
The CBP also faces a wrongful death lawsuit from the family of a migrant Guatemalan woman, who was killed by a border agent last year.