cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/45175473
At the time, Amalia was a healthy toddler with no known issues. The water at Dilley smelled strange, so her parents, Kheilin Valero Marcano and Stiven Arrieta Prieto, bought bottled water at the center’s commissary for her, despite having no income in detention. (The article noted that nonprofit organizations who work on immigrants’ rights, such as Human Rights First and RAICIES, have found that families detained at Dilley say the water there is “unclean, foul-smelling, and causes stomachaches.”)
Marcano also said that one child found a bug in her food in the facility’s cafeteria, leading other kids not to want to eat. Not long after that, children in the facility began to fall sick, including Amalia. In January, Amalia developed a high fever, and at the facility’s clinic, Amalia was given ibuprofen and her parents were told the fever was “good, because it means she’s fighting off a virus.”
But after two weeks, the fever persisted, and Amalia started vomiting and having diarrhea. Going back to Dilley’s medical clinic didn’t help, as Marcano told The New Yorker she waited in line on eight different occasions without her concerns being addressed. Marcano at one point gave Amalia a cold bath to try to lower her temperature, only for her daughter to pass out. She went to the clinic and shouted, “Are you going to watch my baby die in my arms?”
A few days later, the facility’s clinic measured Amalia’s blood-oxygen saturation levels, which are supposed to be between 95 percent and 100 percent for a healthy person. Amalia’s were in the low 50s, a level so low that it can kill off parts of the brain. This was enough for ICE to allow Amalia to be sent to a local hospital, and eventually a larger hospital in San Antonio, where she was diagnosed with Covid-19, RSV, bronchitis, pneumonia, and an ear infection. She got supplemental oxygen and intensive care.
Even in the hospital, ICE agents constantly supervised Marcano and Amalia, writing down when she spoke with the nurses, and even getting upset when nurses gave her a bag of clothes and hygiene items. After 10 days in the hospital, the pair were sent back to Dilley, and Amalia was prescribed a medicine to be administered by nebulizer, which her mom said was confiscated by agents.
Amalia and her family were released after 57 days in detention without Amalia’s birth certificate, her vaccination records, or the medication. Her story later showed up in a congressional hearing with then–Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March. But as the article states, Amalia was one of many children suffering from medical neglect in ICE custody, most of whom we will likely never learn about.