Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
5-Year-Old Guatemalan Boy With Fractured Skull Isn't Being Given Proper Care, Immigration Advocates Allege
The Associated Press: Advocates Allege ICE Neglecting 5-Year-Old With Head Injury
A 5-year-old boy from Guatemala who fractured his skull in an accident and suffered bleeding around his brain is not being properly treated at an immigration detention center in Texas for what could be a traumatic brain injury, family members and advocates alleged. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement defended the care given to the 5-year-old, whom the agency detained with his parents and 1-year-old brother in January, about a month after the boy fell out of a shopping cart. (Merchant, 2/5)
The Hill: Advocates Say ICE Denying Proper Care To Child With Head Injury
The boy fell out of a shopping cart and fractured his skull about a month before being detained by ICE, according to Dr. Amy Cohen, executive director of Every Last One, an advocacy group that works to end childhood detention. The child is in custody along with his mother and his 1-year-old brother at the detention center in Dilley, Texas, after the family was detained during what they believed to be a routine check-in at an ICE office in Los Angeles. (Bernal, 2/5)
In other news —
BuzzFeed News: ICE Is Fingerprinting Teen Immigrants And Refugees
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have begun fingerprinting unaccompanied immigrant children over the age of 14 who are not in their custody but are in shelters across the country, BuzzFeed News has learned. ICE officials called it a way to protect unaccompanied minors in custody. “In January, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued field guidance to juvenile coordinators to work with Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to identify and collect fingerprints on unaccompanied alien children (UACs) at ORR facilities who are over the age of 14, to mitigate and prevent the risk of their victimization by human traffickers and smugglers, and to reduce misidentification,” a senior ICE official said in an email to BuzzFeed News. (Aleaziz, 2/5)
