Anadith Tanay Reyes Alvarez
Anadith Danay Reyes Álvarez was an 8-year-old girl from a Garifuna family. Her father told a consul she was born with heart problems and had been operated on in Panama three years earlier. She died in May 2023 at a hospital in Harlingen, Texas, after a medical emergency, while she and her family were held at a Border Patrol station. Customs and Border Protection said an autopsy had been ordered and that its internal affairs office and the Homeland Security inspector general were notified. Advocates with the Haitian Bridge Alliance and the Texas Civil Rights Project say she had been held longer than the 72-hour legal limit, that her mother repeatedly asked for her to be taken to a hospital, and that agents ignored those pleas. A FOIA lawsuit is pending, and the advocates say CBP has not released all of its records about her death.
Cause of death, as reported: Died of illness (disputed; neglect alleged). CBP says she died of a medical emergency, while the Haitian Bridge Alliance and Texas Civil Rights Project say agents ignored her mother's repeated requests to take her to a hospital and held her beyond the 72-hour limit.
Reported by: U.S. Customs and Border Protection (the agency that held her); Haitian Bridge Alliance and Texas Civil Rights Project (advocates).