Deportation
(Photo : Reuters)

A 5-year-old Guatemalan boy, together with his family is in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody after a routine check-in. Relatives of the boy accused ICE of negligence saying that the 5-year old boy named Mateo was put on a plane to a Texas Detention Center together with his family while Mateo cried and complained about frequent headaches.

According to the family, the boy was suffering from severe head trauma.

However, in a statement released by the Immigration Customs Enforcement, they said that Milda Rodriguez, the mother of the child, did not divulge any information about the health condition of the child at the time of the arrest and the medical examinations of the child revealed no problems at all.

The family said that Mateo fell from a supermarket cart while playing with his 1-year-old brother on Dec. 22. The family decided immediately to consult a doctor in two medical centers two days after the incident because the boy kept on crying due to the pain.

In a report from Telemundo News, they found that the doctors consulted by the family performed MRIs and detected blood in the brain and a fracture in the skull. However, the family said that they were not able to visit a neurologist who specializes in the case of the child because ICE detained them during a routine check-in in January after they missed their immigration hearing way back in November last year for their asylum application.

In a report from NBC News, the mother and with her children were detained in an immigration detention center in Dilley, Texas. While the father of the family was sent to a seperate detention center in California that only houses adult males.

However, in a statement released by ICE, they claim that the aunt of the child never told the government about the present health condition of Mateo nor did she show officials the child's medical report.

Leidy Rojas, the aunt of the child, said: "My sister calls me every day very stressed and worried about what is happening with Mateo. We are very concerned that they are not giving her the medical care she's requesting for the child. With any noise, he covers his ears with his hands and starts screaming because his head hurts a lot."

Meanwhile, ICE told a news outlet that the agency visited the child on Jan. 23 and 27 and did a routine examination with the child and they found out no apparent medical problems. ICE officials added that workers in the center also visit the child.

Moreover, ICE rushed the child to the nearest hospital in San Antonio after the mother told the agency that Mateo has been wetting the bed since the accident. According to ICE, after the MRI was performed it was found that there were no signs of blood in the brain which contradicts the previous medical reports.

After this, the child was discharged from the hospital and joined his family again in the detention center in Texas. 

Dr. Amy Cohen, who is closely working with the family, said in a statement that Mateo's treatment is "consistent with other observations of other indifferent treatment" as she has seen in the ICE detention centers which is also the same in the Customs and Border Protection Facilities.

Cohen, a member of Physician for Human Rights which investigates the medical irregularities in the detention centers, told a news outlet that there are serious violations of human rights. 

Meanwhile, in the recent report published by ICE in November, CoreCivic, a private company, that manages the detention center where Mateo is being held, is just one of the detention centers across the country that can hold about 1,600 people. The family of Mateo has been in ICE custody for 17 days and under U.S. law, they are not allowed to hold detained families for more than 20 days.