An 8-year-old girl died in Texas Border Patrol custody on Wednesday, officials said.

The death occurred at a local hospital.

“The child and her family were in custody at Harlingen station where she was experiencing a medical emergency,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement. “The emergency medical services were called to the station and took her to the local hospital where she was pronounced dead.”

The Customs and Border Protection Office of Professional Responsibility is investigating and the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General has been notified.

This appears to be the first death of a child under border surveillance since 2019, when the death of a 16-year-old Guatemalan boy led several politicians to denounce the Trump administration’s immigration policies and pledge to investigate.

The Biden administration struggled to contain an increase in the number of migrants arriving at the border before ending last week’s controversial Title 42 policy, which allowed agents to quickly deport migrants without giving them access to the asylum system.

although

border crossings have fallen

since the policy expired Thursday,

the number of people in Border Patrol custody rose to more than 28,000 last week, above normal capacity.

Government officials relied on policies that allowed them to quickly release migrants without court notices to prevent what they said would be dangerous overcrowding. A federal court in Florida later blocked that attempt.

The number of crossing migrants has fallen dramatically in recent days.

Homeland Security officials this week said border agents have encountered about 4,400 migrants a day since Title 42 expired, up from more than 10,000 a day early last week.

From

May 14

By Sunday, the number of migrants in custody had fallen to just over 22,000, according to court records.

It’s too early, but the numbers we’ve seen over the past two days are significantly lower than they were before the end of Title 42, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said on CNN Sunday.

US officials warned in court records last week that they would be in trouble if they could not release people quickly.

At the current operational pace and without additional measures such as parole,

USBP [Border Patrol]

would have more than 45,000 in custody by the end of the month. Furthermore, the [Homeland Security Department] Chief Medical Officer has concluded that the current conditions pose an increased risk of adverse health outcomes, according to a Justice Department filing.