Hundreds of separated families have been reunited in recent days at Dilley and at least one other ICE family detention center. Those centers also house families taken into custody at the border but not separated by the government. Because there is so little information available about the child who reportedly died, it is impossible to say whether that child was among the minors who had been separated.<doc-sep>A national organization for immigration lawyers said Wednesday that a migrant toddler had died shortly after being released from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement family detention center in Dilley, Texas. The statement came after a day of confusion set off by a tweet from an immigration attorney alleging a child had died in ICE custody. ICE denied Wednesday that a migrant had died in its custody and said it was investigating the possibility a child had died after leaving an agency facility. The tweet appears to have been the result of the lawyer reading a crowdsourcing call on Facebook, posting it on Twitter as news, and getting a crucial fact wrong in the process. Advertisement The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), which confirmed the death to the Washington Post, was not able to provide additional details, including when the death occurred, its cause, or what, if any, impact the detention may have had on the child’s health. The communications director for the group told Slate in an email, “AILA learned from a contact who was in touch with the family that the death occurred after the child and parent left Dilley. AILA does not have permission to share who told us this information, and we do not at this time have additional details regarding the death.” Slate has not been able to independently verify the death; neither has the Post, which first reported the story. Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement The disarray began on Twitter when Houston immigration attorney Mana Yegani tweeted, “There are reports that a child died in ICE custody in Dilley, Texas.” She deleted the tweet and issued an update, saying that the child had actually died after her release. Update: The child died following her stay at an ICE Detention Center, as a result of possible negligent care and a respiratory illness she contracted from one of the other children. The events took place in Dilley Family Detention Center in south Texas. — Mana Yegani (@Law_Mana) August 1, 2018 Advertisement The tweets started circulating widely, with thousands of users reposting them and attempting to alert reporters. (The allegations around cause of death remain unverified.) By Wednesday morning, people were questioning the accuracy of the report. For example, a CBS assignment editor noted he had deleted his retweet. Breaking: Original poster of story about child that may have died in custody at an ICE Detention facility is now retracting the story. Which is why I have deleted my retweet. It's also why I wrote "If true." — Mark Kewman (@mkewman) August 1, 2018 Advertisement At 8:52 a.m. ET, 11 hours after Yegani’s initial tweet, ICE posted its own tweet denying that a child had died in the Dilley detention center. Reports that a child died in ICE custody at Dilley are false. — ICE (@ICEgov) August 1, 2018 Advertisement Advertisement An ICE spokesperson echoed the tweet in a statement to Slate, which read in part: “No child or adult has ever died at an ICE family residential center.” The spokesperson also pointed to the fact that “the person who originally tweeted that later posted an update that retracted the original accusation.” ICE’s tweet did not address the possibility that a child may have died after leaving ICE custody. At around the same time that ICE sent its tweet, Yegani disclosed where she had obtained the information. (Yegani was unavailable for comment when Slate reached out to her law office.) This is a statement from the attorney who informed me of this tragic death. She a friend of the victim’s family and she is the one in touch with them. I don’t have any direct contact with the victim’s family. See below the image of her message that was posted on Facebook. pic.twitter.com/ISOCRQBend — Mana Yegani (@Law_Mana) August 1, 2018 Advertisement Last night a lawyer in Wash DC, posted on FB, seeking recommendations for a lawyer to represent a family whose child died AFTER her stay at Dilley Detention Cntr in TX. I made the news public.I am in touch with Melissa-the lawyer, but have no confirmation from the victim’s family — Mana Yegani (@Law_Mana) August 1, 2018 Melissa Lynn Turcios, the D.C.-based lawyer whom Yegani referenced in the tweets, said she is a friend of the toddler’s family. It appears that she had taken to Facebook to try to find legal help for the family. Yegani then posted information about the child’s death—incorrectly at first—on Twitter. Turcios told Slate in an email, “I am not an attorney for anyone involved. I was simply hoping to connect the family with legal resources, as a friend.” She declined to comment further.<doc-sep>Seventy days after Yazmin Juarez and her young daughter, Mariee, crossed the Rio Grande seeking asylum, the little girl was dead from a respiratory infection she had contracted in an immigration detention facility, according to a claim filed Tuesday by her mother against one of the contractors that operates the facility. Three days before Mother's Day, instead of bringing her daughter home, Juarez left a New Jersey hospital with only an ink print of Mariee's right hand. It was the end of a six-week-long saga of hospitalizations and medical tests that she alleges started when the staff at the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, were negligent in treating the respiratory infection that ultimately ended her child's life, according to the claim. Juarez is now seeking $40 million in damages from the City of Eloy, Arizona, which is "the federal government's prime contractor operating the Dilley facility," one of her attorneys, R. Stanton Jones, said in a statement Tuesday. "Those responsible for providing safe, sanitary conditions and proper medical care failed this little girl, and it caused her to die a painful death. Mariee Juarez entered Dilley a healthy baby girl and 20 days later was discharged a gravely ill child with a life-threatening respiratory infection," Jones said in his statement. The City of Eloy did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment. Stanton also said Juarez intends to pursue litigation against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and "others responsible for Mariee's tragic excruciatingly painful death." An ICE spokesperson told ABC News the agency is not able to comment on pending litigation but did point to a June 2017 Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's report that stated that family residential centers are "clean, well-organized, and efficiently run" and the agency was found to be "addressing the inherent challenges of providing medical care and language services and ensuring the safety of families in detention." "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) takes very seriously the health, safety and welfare of those in our care. ICE is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency’s custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care," ICE said in a statement. "Comprehensive medical care is provided to all individuals in ICE custody. Staffing includes registered nurses and licensed practical nurses, licensed mental health providers, mid-level providers that include a physician’s assistant and nurse practitioner, a physician, dental care, and access to 24-hour emergency care. Pursuant to our commitment to the welfare of those in the agency’s custody, ICE spends more than $250M annually on the spectrum of healthcare services provided to those in our care," the statement continued. 'It was too late' On March 1, Yazmin and Mariee Juarez crossed the U.S.-Mexico border after fleeing violence in their native Guatemala, according to the claim. Four days later, the mother and daughter were transferred to the Dilley detention facility, where they shared a single room with five other mothers and their children, according to the claim. Some of the other children in the room were sick and one little boy had "a constant cough and runny nose, and was very lethargic." Mariee also began coughing and experiencing congestion, according to the claim, and on March 11, a physician assistant in the detention facility "diagnosed Mariee with an acute upper respiratory infection and prescribed Tylenol for comfort" and "honey packs for cough." But the next day, Juarez sought help from medical staff again after Mariee ran a fever of 104.2 degrees and started vomiting and having diarrhea in addition to her respiratory symptoms, according to the claim. Mariee was diagnosed with acute bronchiolitis and an ear infection and prescribed an antibiotic, fever reducers and oral hydration, according to the claim. Yazmin and Mariee Juarez were sent back to the detention facility's housing area and told to follow up if her condition worsened. No further tests were performed that day, according to the claim. Mariee's symptoms worsened over the coming days and Yazmin Juarez "sought medical attention for Mariee multiple times but was often left waiting for many hours, including at least two instances where she was turned away and told to wait for an appointment on a later day," according to the claim. By March 15, Mariee had lost 2 pounds -- nearly 8 percent of her body weight -- and her symptoms were worse, according to the claim. Mariee was examined at the detention facility's clinic several more times as her symptoms worsened. Her fever remained high and she was unable to keep down medication or food, according to the claim. Finally, on March 25, Yazmin and Mariee Juarez were transferred out of the Dilley facility and put on a flight to New Jersey from San Antonio, according to the claim, but "no medical personnel examined Mariee to clear her for travel." When Yazmin and Mariee Juarez arrived in New Jersey earlier on the morning of March 26, "Mariee’s condition was dire," according to the claim. She was seen by a pediatrician who tried to open her lungs because she was having difficulty breathing but was sent home with instructions for Yazmin to monitor her symptoms in case they got worse, according to the claim. Later that day, Mariee was admitted to the emergency room, but it was too late: she was diagnosed with viral bronchiolitis and tested positive for adenovirus and parainfluenza 3, according to the claim. She would spend the next -- and final -- six weeks of her life in the hospital in "progressive respiratory failure," the claim states. Mariee died on May 10 after experiencing a catastrophic hemorrhage and "irreversible brain and organ damage with no hope of survival," the claim states; her cause of death was bronchiectasis, pulmonitis, and a collapsed lung. 'I need to know the name of that child' Reports of a child's death after leaving the Dilley facility surfaced weeks ago but Mariee's identity had not been released. Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Commissioner Hank Whitman had pleaded for information about the alleged incident during a Texas House of Representatives committee hearing on Aug. 9. The committee chairman asked Whitman to address allegations that a child died shortly after leaving the Dilley facility. "I hope [the attorney] is listening to this. If you just please give us the name of the child, we have no way of knowing otherwise, we don’t know if the child died the day after, we don’t know," Whitman said at the time. "I’m putting my law enforcement hat on right now, I need to know the name of that child so we can investigate thoroughly." That same day, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services said it received the name of the child and other pertinent information and immediately opened an investigation, according to DFPS media relations manager Patrick Crimmins. When the story of the child's death was first reported, ICE told The Washington Post that it could not investigate a case without the name of the child or other specific information. "ICE is cooperating with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ requests for records. Prior to being contacted by Texas DFPS, ICE had not been provided by any party with a name or identifying information with which to research these allegations," ICE spokesperson Sarah Rodriguez said on Aug. 10. ICE subsequently declined to comment further. Yazmin Juarez is being represented pro-bono by attorneys from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer and Osborn Maledon. Jones, Juarez's attorney from Arnold & Porter, did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for further comment for this story. From Dec. 1, 2017, through July 31, 2018, the Texas state agency launched 51 abuse/neglect investigations at state-licensed federal facilities for unaccompanied minors as well as an investigation into the Dilley family facility. Most of the cases were determined to be unfounded, except for nine pending cases, which remain under investigation, according to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. Currently, the allegation of medical neglect related to Mariee Juarez is the department's only open investigation into the Dilley facility, a spokesperson confirmed.<doc-sep>
The American Immigration Lawyers Association confirmed reports on Wednesday that a migrant child died after being released from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Dilley, Texas. “AILA has learned that a toddler died soon after release from the Dilley South Texas Family Residential Center,” Gregory Z. Chen, director of government relations, said in a statement, according to The Washington Post. “We do not have information on the cause of death or information that confirms a connection between medical treatment at STFRC and this death.” The allegations first surfaced Tuesday evening, when Houston-based immigration lawyer Mana Yegani tweeted that a child died “as a result of possible negligent care and a respiratory illness she contracted from one of the other children.” ThinkProgress was unable to independently verify the allegations. AILA has not confirmed Yegani’s claims or provided any additional information about the circumstances or timing of the child’s death. It is unclear whether the toddler was one of the children separated from his or her family at the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy. “Reports that a child died in ICE custody at Dilley are false,” ICE tweeted in response to the social media backlash that resulted from Yegani’s initial tweet. Reports that a child died in ICE custody at Dilley are false. — ICE (@ICEgov) August 1, 2018 In a statement emailed to ThinkProgress, ICE public affairs officer Leticia Zamarripa said the agency is “looking into the report of the death after custody, but without any specifics about who this was we are unable to provide anything further at this time.” The Dilley detention center, which opened in December 2014 and is operated by private prison company CoreCivic, is ICE’s largest family facility, with the capacity to hold up to 2,400 women and children. Many of the detained migrants are seeking asylum after fleeing gang violence and domestic abuse. Reports of abuse and neglect have trickled out of Dilley as early as 2015. In a piece for The Marshall Project, ACLU staff attorney Carl Takei likened the facility to an “internment camp.” Katy Murdza, advocacy coordinator with the Dilley Pro Bono Project, told ThinkProgress in an email that while the group does not have information on the cause of the child’s death, “We have, however, seen ongoing inadequacies in the standard of care provided to mothers and children in Dilley, and have filed complaints with the government raising these concerns.” These complaints included accounts of numerous pregnant women who complained of improper medical treatment and poor nutrition in the facility. Despite these complaints, in a 2017 report, the Department of Homeland Security declared that medical care at Dilley was “readily available, followed up on as needed, and was well documented.” The report also stated that the facility had “appropriate conditions of detention for children.” Dilley is one of dozens of ICE detention centers that has come under fire in recent months over allegations of abuse. A June 2018 report by The Texas Tribune found that several ICE facilities licensed to care for migrant children who were separated from their parents have been cited for inhumane treatment, health and safety violations, as well as neglect and sexual and physical abuse.