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Family Accuses City Of Eloy After Migrant Child's Death In Federal Custody

Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP

The child’s mother accuses ICE and the administrators of the South Texas Family Residential Center of providing the toddler inadequate medical care.

The child Mariee Juarez died six weeks after their release, partly of a collapsed lung after a series of medical issues.

The facility is in Dilley, Texas. ICE built the facility in 2014 to manage a rush of unaccompanied immigrant children and families from Central America. It used an existing inter-governmental agreement for the Eloy Detention Center with the city of Eloy to rush through the construction.

Eloy receives $438,000 dollars a year for the agreement. The Office of Inspector General last spring called Eloy an "unnecessary middleman" in the agreement and said ICE improperly modified the agreement to build the facility 900 miles away.

Fronteras Desk senior editor Michel Marizco is an award-winning investigative reporter based in Flagstaff.