Swabs Reveal Clue in Migrant Boy's Death

Felipe Gómez Alonzo had the flu: medical investigator
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 28, 2018 8:05 AM CST
Swabs Reveal Clue in Migrant Boy's Death
This Dec, 12, 2018 photo shows Felipe Gomez Alonzo, 8.   (Catarina Gomez via AP)

The 8-year-old Guatemalan boy who died in US custody on Christmas Eve had the flu, according to the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator. "Results of nasal and lung swabs have tested positive for influenza B," though "determining an accurate cause of death requires further evaluation," a statement reads, per NBC News. It came as House Democrats released a statement of their own, asking that evidence be preserved to allow hearings into the deaths of Felipe Gómez Alonzo—who was moved to a Customs and Border Protection facility in Alamogordo, NM, after he was apprehended with his father near El Paso, Texas, on Dec. 18, per USA Today—and 7-year-old Javelin Caal Maquin, also of Guatemala. (CBP has since ordered medical checks on every child in its custody.)

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