Why the family of the boy who died in Border Patrol custody decided to send him north

The 8-year-old boy died on Christmas Eve, becoming the second Guatemalan child to die in US Customs and Border Protection custody this month.

"Bring my son home," she told Univision through a translator on Thursday. "I need to see him."

"They told us they were doing all they possibly could to get him back, but we just want them to hurry," said Felipe's sister, Maria.

Before Felipe's father began their journey north, the family had been struggling to make ends meet, according to the midwife who helped delivered the boy.

So his parents decided Felipe should go with him. "They agreed for him to take their son," Maria Domingo Lopez, the midwife, told the Guatemalan newspaper Prensa Libre on Thursday. "She saw the need for the father to go because there are days when we don't eat. We aren't finding any thing."

The newspaper spoke to her in Yalambojoch, in the Guatemalan province of Huehuetenango.

The father had a loan he could not repay, which also contributed to the decision to leave, Felipe's uncle, Andres Gomez Perez, told Prensa Libre.

And there weren't many opportunities to make a living in the rolling, verdant hills of Huehuetenango, locals told the paper.

"Families look for ways to get ahead. ... This father who left with his son, he hoped to give his son a better education," Lucas Perez, a village official, said.

The boy was apprehended with his father on December 18 at a location about the miles west of the Paso Del Norte port of entry in El Paso, Texas for illegal entry, according to a CBP timeline of the days before the Felipe's death.

On Monday, Felipe was taken to a hospital, diagnosed with a cold, released with medication, then taken back to the hospital. He died shortly before midnight at Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center in Alamogordo, New Mexico, about 90 miles north of the border crossing in El Paso, Texas.

"The poor child couldn't hold on," said Domingo Lopez, the midwife.

The cause of death unclear. An autopsy was scheduled for Wednesday in Albuquerque.

Second child to die in CBP custody

Felipe's death, just weeks after a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl died while being held by CBP, has prompted criticism of the federal agency's handling of a surge of migrant children at the southwest border, and led to more medical screenings of minors.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen this week called the death of a child in government custody "deeply concerning and heartbreaking." She announced several policy changes around the government's care of migrant children and reiterated her call for "parents to not place their children at risk by taking a dangerous journey north."

On December 8, Jakelin Caal Maquin, 7, died in a hospital two days after she was taken to a Border Patrol station. Her body was returned home last weekend to the indigenous Guatemalan community of Raxruha.

Her family said she fled the country with her father, Nery Gilberto Caal, 29, in search of a better life. She survived the 2,000-mile journey from northern Guatemala only to die less than 48 hours after Border Patrol agents detained her at a US-Mexico border crossing.

Her death marked another flashpoint in the debate over the Trump administration's hardline approach to immigration enforcement.

Before this month, there were six deaths in CBP custody in 2018, and none of those were children, DHS officials said.

Prior to Jakelin's death, no child had died in CBP custody in more than a decade, Homeland Security officials said.

In the last two months alone, the Border Patrol has apprehended 139,817 undocumented migrants on the Southwest Border, compared to 74,946 during the same time in fiscal 2018, according to Nielsen.

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