U.S. Border Patrol Medical Screening Standards Act
Floor Speech
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Ms. BARRAGAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3525, the U.S. Border Patrol Medical Screening Standards Act.
Mr. Speaker, I have been to the southern border a number of times. I have seen the cold concrete holding cell where Felipe Gomez Alonzo, an 8-year-old boy, spent his last days. He was apprehended on December 18, 2018, and did not receive proper medical testing, screenings, and care.
Six days later, on Christmas Eve, while Americans were celebrating family and a holiday, Felipe would go on to suffer from a 103-degree fever. Felipe would also start vomiting and become weak, then die while in custody of the U.S. Government.
I wish I could say that he was the last child that died in U.S. custody, but he wasn't. In the 17 months since the Trump administration implemented their zero-tolerance policy at the southern border, inhumanely jailing migrant children and cruelly separating children from their parents, six--let me repeat that, six--migrant children have tragically fallen ill and died in Federal custody:
Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle was 10 years old;
Jakelin Caal Maquin was 7;
Felipe Gomez Alonzo was 8;
Juan de Leon Gutierrez was 16;
Carlos Hernandez Vasquez was 16; and
Wilmer Josue Ramirez Vasquez was a 2\1/2\-year-old baby.
The death of these children demonstrates the dangers faced by migrants at the hands of the very government they hoped would save them. The inadequate medical recordkeeping is dangerous and is a huge gap that we must fix.
How many more kids will have to die before DHS makes effective changes in the way they improve medical screenings and track medical records? How many?
Ms. Underwood, a nurse and the author of the bill, has been to the southern border with me to see the problem firsthand. It is her medical training and background that led to this bill so that we could research ways to improve medical screenings and improve the tracking of medical records, something that is not happening right now.
Mr. Speaker, this body and this Nation has a moral obligation to make sure that no more children needlessly die in detention at our southern border and, in doing so, to perhaps bring some measure of meaning to the tragic deaths of those six children.
I urge my colleagues to support H.R. 3525.
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