After a final stretch on foot along a dirt road through high desert, a father and his young daughter crossed into the United States at the end of a 2,mile journey through Mexico.
Just over 27 hours later, despite desperate efforts to save her, seven-year-old Jakelin Amei Ros mery Caal Maquin was dead. According to the DHS , her death followed days of traveling through the desert without enough food or water.
A Washington Post report said the border patrol agency cited statements from her father. An anonymous Customs and Border Protection CBP official also told the Post her father did not raise the alarm about her worsening fever while they were in custody. The brothers are barefoot, their feet caked with mud and their clothes in tatters. Her grandfather said that the journey had taken about a week and her father had paid a human trafficker to get them across the border, making their crossing into a desolate section of New Mexico wilderness known as the Bootheel, where the border cuts across the mountainous Chihuahua desert.
The DHS gave a timeline of what happened after the group of crossed the border on Tuesday 5 December and were stopped by three border agents at 9. However, Trump policies of placing border sentries on international bridges to block people from stepping on to United States soil has increased the numbers travelling to more dangerous and remote spots. Instead of waiting at ports of entry for days or weeks at a time, often in squalor or without shelter, frustrated asylum seekers are opting to cross the border between ports of entry.
This denial was recorded on Form I signed by the father. At this time, they were offered water and food and had access to restrooms. The agents decided to transport the large group by bus to the nearest border patrol station at Lordsburg, 90 minutes away.
