A 32-year-old man died Thursday morning at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) facility in Lordsburg, New Mexico, the agency confirmed. The man was identified by a Salvadoran consulate official as Marvin Antonio González, and he is the sixth adult death reported so far this year either at a migrant detention center or after having spent time there.
González had been traveling from El Salvador for a week, the Salvadoran consulate official told CBS News. The official said González was traveling with his 11-year-old daughter, who is alive and at a New Mexico shelter.
CBP said González was detained by El Paso Station Border Patrol agents around 9 p.m. Wednesday and then went into medical distress, and attempts to revive him were unsuccessful. The consulate official said they are awaiting the results of an autopsy to determine the cause of death and have requested medical records from El Salvador.
So far in 2019, six adults who were at migrant detention facilities in Texas, Arizona and Georgia have died, according to the American Immigration Lawyers Association. In July, CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell visited the Ursula processing facility in McAllen, Texas, the nation’s largest migrant processing facility in the country.
A report in The New York Times earlier this summer described “outbreaks of scabies, shingles and chickenpox spreading among the hundreds of children… being held in cramped cells” at the Clint Border Facility in Texas. Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan called the allegations “unsubstantiated.”
In addition to the adults who have died, at least six children have died since September 2018 either in government custody or soon after their release. At least three of the children died from the flu, according to autopsies.
