Asylum seeker dies trying to re-enter U.S.

August 2, 2019

A 20-year old Guatemalan woman seeking asylum and sent to Mexico under a controversial Trump administration policy died early Tuesday morning after attempting to re-enter the U.S. in El Paso, a spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection told CBS News.

The woman, Vilma Mendoza, had initially entered the U.S. on July 4 and had been awaiting her asylum hearing in Mexico under the Migrant Protections Protocol program, according to a Guatemalan consulate official. She attempted to re-enter the U.S. on July 29 through an irrigation canal where she drowned. Her asylum court hearing was scheduled for August 18th.

A CBP spokesperson said Border Patrol agents were told about Mendoza by an Ecuadorian man they had apprehended. “The man informed agents that he had entered the canal with a woman, who did not make it across,” the spokesperson said. “A rescue team from the El Paso Fire Department performed CPR and transported the woman, later identified as a 20-year-old from Guatemala, to a local hospital, where she was pronounced deceased shortly after midnight.”

On June 24, a man from El Salvador and his two-year-old daughter drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande into Irving, Texas. A photo of Oscar Alberto Martinez and his daughter lying face down in the river shocked the country.

A 32-year-old man, Marvin Antonio González, died Thursday morning at a CBP facility in Lordsburg, New Mexico,

As of July 13th, 19,911 migrants have been sent back to Mexico under the MPP program.