Her Daughter Died After Getting Sick in ICE Detention. Now She’s Taking Legal Action.

In early August, rumors swirled about a child who died after leaving an ICE family detention center. It was unclear exactly what happened, and, at first, neither Texas state nor ICE had the name of the child involved. But now, VICE News has released a report detailing the events that led to the death of Mariee, an 18-month-old who came to the United States from Guatemala.

Mariee was the daughter of Yazmin Juárez, a 20 year old who came to the U.S. to seek asylum in March. She was taken to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, after being apprehended by Customs and Border Protection and then transferred to ICE. Dilley is the largest of three family detention centers in the country.

A week after arriving at Dilley, VICE News reports that Mariee got sick with a cough, congestion, and fever of over 104. She then battled this sickness off and on over the next two weeks in detention.

Yazmin and Mariee were eventually released from Dilley after passing a credible fear interview, the first step in achieving asylum, and went to New Jersey to stay with Yazmin’s mother. At that point, Mariee was seen at three different hospitals and eventually died at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania. Hospital records show she died of viral pneumonitis on May 10th.

According to VICE News, Yazmin is now pursuing legal action against ICE, and her lawyers say the Dilley facility “failed inexcusably” in their care of Mariee and her mother. ICE did not give VICE a comment specifically about Mariee’s case.

The news site also had five pediatricians review “Mariee’s symptoms, vital signs, and doctor’s notes in ICE medical records,” and they said Mariee’s treatment was “consistent with what they would do for a toddler presenting with those symptoms.” They all said her treatment would have been the same even if she wasn’t in ICE custody, and doctors said the virus could have still killed her even if she had full hospital care.

However, pediatricians also said that facilities like Dilley can hamper a child’s ability to recover from respiratory infections and can allow viruses to spread more easily.

Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, told VICE News, “Respiratory diseases, they flourish in the setting of crowding. Now you’re adding this terrible level of psycho-social stress on kids, that could also impair their immune system, making them more susceptible to viruses and bacteria.”

Earlier in August, the Associated Press reported that Texas child welfare officials opened an abuse and neglect investigation into Mariee’s case.

Read the full VICE News report, here.