US: Migrant minors marked with numbers video goes viral

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - Video of migrant children with numbers marked on their arms has gone viral after a 7-year-old girl died in U.S. custody of apparent septic shock.

The MSNBC news network first reported on the practice this weekend following the death of Jakelin Caal Maquin, a Guatemalan child who along with her father, were apprehended after illegally crossing the U.S.'s southern border.

Maquin and her father were taken into custody along with a group of more than 160 migrants in a remote area of New Mexico.

While being put on a bus en route to a border patrol facility in Lordsburg, New Mexico, Maquin's father notified officials his daughter had been vomiting.

She died hours later Dec. 8 at a hospital in El Paso, Texas, after she was flown to a children's hospital there.

Official autopsy results have yet to be made public. Sepsis occurs when the body seeks to respond to an extreme infection and can lead to organ failure, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Department of Homeland Security said her father denied Maquin was sick during an initial interview with officials.

"The initial screening revealed no evidence of health issues," the department said in a statement. "During the screening, the father denied that either he or his daughter were ill."

Maquin's death has renewed concerns about the Trump administration's migration policies amid MSNBC's report that children waiting to cross the U.S. border are having numbers written on their arms by Mexican officials.

Some have drawn parallels between the practice and the tattoos Nazis would use to identify Jewish prisoners in concentration camps.

"Visions of Auschwitz," commented Twitter user @bob_glatter, referring to the infamous Nazi concentration camp in Poland.

The numbers being written on the children are being drawn with what appears to be a marker, according to footage posted by MSNBC's Cal Perry on Twitter.

Migrants from Central America have been increasingly seeking to reach the U.S. amid widespread poverty and gang violence in the region.

Large groups collectively known as "caravans" have drawn the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump who has deployed the military personnel along the border in a bid to thwart potential illegal crossings.