SAFE HARBOR – Three days after a 17-year-old Honduran boy died in the care of a government-funded shelter for migrant children, U.S. Sen. Rick Scott and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna visited the facility Saturday, but they said they received no new answers about what led to his death.
Officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services showed Republican members of Congress around the shelter on Main Street downtown. Since the end of 2020, it has been operated by the Jewish Community and Family Services of the Gulf Coast.
“I didn’t see anything that would lead you to believe that anything went wrong at this facility, but a child died,” Scott said at a news conference after the tour. “They must be transparent. They have to tell us exactly what happened.”
The teenager, identified as Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, arrived at the shelter on May 5, according to a Honduran government statement. He was taken to Mease County Hospital Wednesday after being found unconscious at 8 a.m. Doctors spent about an hour trying to revive him before he was pronounced dead.
The death, which has received international media coverage, comes as immigration has burst back into the national spotlight with the expiration on Thursday of a public health law in effect in March 2020, when the coronavirus cases first began to spread across the United States. The expired law gave the United States the authority to turn away migrants seeking refugee status at the US-Mexico border.
Instead, President Joe Biden’s administration is sending more troops to the border and has announced it will reject asylum seekers who don’t first seek refugee status in the countries they traveled through before arriving in the USA The policy is similar to the one adopted by former President Donald Trump that was overturned by the courts. Biden’s policy is also being challenged by migrant advocates, according to one Associated Press report .
There are now tougher penalties for migrants caught crossing illegally. They will not be allowed to return for five years and could face criminal prosecution if they try.
Still, Scott and Luna pointed to the teenager’s death at the Safety Harbor shelter as a result of an “open border” under the Biden administration and criticized the president for not doing more to prevent people from crosses the United States.
“These migrant children wouldn’t be here and wouldn’t be at risk if we didn’t have the policies that we do today,” Luna said. “And that’s why it’s so important that people realize that poor legislation has consequences.”
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Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration announced in December 2022 that Florida will They are no longer licensed in shelters that host migrant children. The decision stripped shelters, including Safety Harbor, of state oversight by allowing them to operate without a license.
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When asked whether the state should regulate shelters with migrant children, Scott and Luna put the onus on the federal government.
“I hope that (the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services), which is responsible, will do everything they can to keep these children safe,” Scott said.
In a statement to the Times, the US Department of Health and Human Services said its Office of Refugee Resettlement monitors and evaluates the migrant child shelters it funds in Florida “to ensure the safety and well-being of all the children in our care.” However, he declined to elaborate on his oversight of the Safety Harbor shelter.
Although the state no longer licenses these shelters, the federal office said it still requires their facilities to meet licensing standards.
Sandra Braham, CEO of Jewish Community and Family Services of the Gulf Coast, said she was not authorized to discuss the foster care program or the boy’s death.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement places unaccompanied minors from several countries, including Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, into Safety Harbor facilities. There, they await placement with sponsor families, according to Helen Rodriguez, who said she worked at the shelter from January to April 2021 as a coordinator.
Espinoza’s sponsor was notified of his death, according to the Honduran government statement. Sponsors, usually family members already in the United States, are background-checked by the Office of Refugee Resettlement before they receive custody.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the death. The Honduran government has also requested, through its embassy in Washington, DC, that US officials conduct an expedited investigation.
Espinoza was the second migrant child to die in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services in two months. In March, a 4-year-old boy from Honduras died after being hospitalized for cardiac arrest in Michigan, according to CBS News.
During eight months between 2018 and 2019, six migrant children died in US custody or shortly after their release, CBS News reported.
