Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials said on Wednesday that the 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died in U.S. custody this week did so after his alleged father declined additional medical treatment.
The boy, Felipe Gomez Alonzo, was initially taken to the hospital after CBP agents noticed that he was sick and was "diagnosed with the common cold, given prescription medications and discharged," ABC St. Louis reported.
A spokesperson for DHS said on Wednesday that the boy later continued to complain about not feeling well and started vomiting, "but the man claiming to be his father told agents that the boy did not need to return to the hospital and that 'he had been feeling better.'"
The agents later checked on the boy and noticed that his condition had worsened, at which point they decided to take him back to the hospital where he later died.
"Our system has been pushed to a breaking point by those who seek open borders," Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen wrote on Wednesday. "Smugglers, traffickers, and their own parents put these minors at risk by embarking on the dangerous and arduous journey north."