Unaccompanied migrant child dies in US custody, a tragedy Biden called 'unacceptable' when Trump was president

The Biden administration confirmed Friday that an unaccompanied migrant child who came to the United States from Honduras has died.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for caring for unaccompanied migrant children through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, provided no details about the child's death.

"[HHS] is deeply saddened by this tragic loss and our heart goes out to the family, with whom we are in touch," the agency said in a statement.

Honduran Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Reina confirmed the death, identifying the child as 17-year-old Ángel Eduardo Maradiaga Espinoza, who was placed in a migrant facility in Safety Harbor, Florida. He said that Honduran President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya has requested an "exhaustive" investigation into Espinoza's death to ensure there is full accountability for anyone responsible for the death.

According to CNN, Espinoza was taken to a local hospital on Wednesday after being found unconscious. Tragically, he was pronounced dead after resuscitation attempts failed to revive him.

A medical examiner is investigating the death.

There were about 8,700 unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody as of Wednesday. Most spend about one month in U.S. custody while they await being released to a sponsor, who is most often a family member already in the U.S.

Meanwhile, CNN reported this is not the first unaccompanied migrant child death under President Joe Biden. The outlet obtained a congressional note revealing that a 4-year-old migrant child from Honduras died in mid-March while in U.S. custody. That tragic death had not been previously reported.

Anything else?

In 2019, Joe Biden condemned tragic deaths of unaccompanied migrant children in U.S. custody as "unacceptable."

"Over the last year, six children have tragically died in US custody at the border. It’s unacceptable. It’s not who we are. And silence is complicity. It’s on all of us to stand up and speak out. America is a nation of immigrants. We must guarantee everyone's treated with dignity," Biden said at the time.

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