Migrant Child Dies in U.S. Custody as Biden Faces Mounting Criticism

A teenage migrant child died at a government-operated care facility in Florida earlier this week, marking a tragic episode in a mounting migrant crisis under President Joe Biden's administration.

In a statement Friday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the news a child had died at an Office of Refugee Resettlement facility in Florida earlier in the week, offering little detail about how the death occurred or even the age and prior condition of the child's health.

"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is deeply saddened by this tragic loss and our hearts go out to the family, with whom we are in touch," the HHS statement read. "As is standard practice for any situation involving the death of an unaccompanied child or a serious health income, HHS' Division of Health for Unaccompanied Children is reviewing all clinical details of this case, including all inpatient health care records. A medical examiner investigation is underway."

"Due to privacy and safety reasons, ORR cannot share further information on individual cases of children who have been in our care," the statement added.

The statement was first reported by Aura Bogado, a senior reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting, who broke the news early Friday.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, the 17-year-old Honduran national reportedly died after being transferred to an area hospital from a shelter operated by the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services nonprofit in Safety Harbor, a small city off the western shore of Tampa Bay.

Friday's news marks a tragic twist amid a mounting migrant crisis after the Thursday night expiration of Title 42, a Trump-era policy that allowed the denial of migrants seeking asylum in the United States under the pretext of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Biden has already faced criticism from some within his own party about the strict policies in place, while attacks from Republicans on the alleged leniencies of his policies have also been relentless.

While the death of a child in a U.S. ORR facility is exceedingly rare (Wednesday's incident marked just the second known death of a child in an ORR shelter. The first-ever child death in such a facility came during the Trump administration when a 10-year-old girl died in an ORR shelter), deaths of migrants overall have spiked.

Over an eight-month span in 2018 and 2019, an estimated six children died in U.S. custody or shortly after being released, drawing scorn from figures like Biden, who saw it as a failure of the Trump administration's treatment of undocumented migrants and, particularly, their administration's controversial family separation policies. Prior to that period, no migrant children had died in U.S. custody since 2010.

"Over the last year, six children have tragically died in US custody at the border," Biden tweeted in 2019. "It's unacceptable. It's not who we are. And silence is complicity. It's on all of us to stand up and speak out. America is a nation of immigrants. We must guarantee everyone's treated with dignity."

According to the most recent available data, 55 people overall died as a result of enforcement actions while in the custody of Customs and Border Patrol in 2021, including nine who died by "use of force." Overall, more than 800 migrants died in the process of crossing the border, the deadliest year on record, primarily from drowning.

Newsweek has reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services via email for additional comment.