A 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant died in a South Texas Border Patrol station on the morning of May 20, but his death wasn't discovered the way the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency reported, published video indicates.
Carlos Gregario Hernandez Vasquez "was found un-responsive this morning during a welfare check," Border Patrol said in a statement published May 20.
But Vasquez wasn't found by a Border Patrol official, even though an agent reportedly checked in on the dying teen three times early that morning, according to the agency's "subject activity log." He was found by his cellmate, according to the video footage of Vasquez's cellblock published by ProPublica Thursday.
The video footage shows that Vasquez fell face-first onto the cell's concrete floor by the toilet at 1:39 a.m. A Border Patrol agent performed a welfare check at 2:02 a.m. and logged nothing. An agent also performed welfare checks at 4:09 a.m. and 5:05 a.m., and still Vasquez lay in a pool of his own blood. It wasn't until his cellmate woke around 6 a.m., finding Vasquez on the floor and notifying a Border Patrol agent, that an official entered the cell to check on the teen, finding him dead.
The video shows the cellmate waking up to find Vasquez lying by the cell's toilet in a pool of his own blood. Seeing this, the video shows the other man go to the cell's door to notify a Border Patrol agent and get Vasquez help. According to ProPublica, it's only then _ after Vasquez's cellmate notified a Border Patrol agent _ that Vasquez was found unresponsive and determined dead.
When Vasquez was brought to the Border Patrol's processing center in McAllen, Texas, he was already "seriously ill." The nurse practitioner who performed his checkup diagnosed Vasquez with the flu and measured his temperature at 103 degrees, ProPublica reported. The nurse recommended that Vasquez be checked again in two hours and taken to the emergency room if his condition worsened by then.
The CPB didn't wait to see if Vasquez's condition worsened or take him to a hospital emergency room. Instead, they quarantined Vasquez, moving him to the cell at the Weslaco Station in the U.S. Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley Sector where he would die, ProPublica reported.
Calling Vasquez's death a "tragic loss," the Border Patrol's former acting commissioner, John Sanders, offered the agency's condolences to the boy's family in a press release. Sanders followed that with a promise that he now says is empty, "CBP is committed to the health, safety and humane treatment of those in our custody."
Sanders resigned soon after Vasquez's death, telling ProPublica, "I believe the U.S. government could have done more."
Vasquez is one of the six children who have reportedly died while entering the U.S. after being detained by government officials since December 2018, ProPublica reported. Vasquez was the only one to die at a Border Patrol station.
"I think the American government failed these people," Sanders said. "The government failed people like Carlos."
As of Thursday, Vasquez's death is under investigation.
