POLITICS JULY 10, 2019 / 6:16 PM / UPDATED 8 MINUTES AGO

'World should know,' migrant tells U.S. Congress of toddler's death

Bryan Pietsch
3 MIN READ

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Guatemalan asylum seeker left some members of a U.S. House panel visibly shaken on Wednesday with the story of her daughter’s death, saying the toddler had contracted a deadly lung infection during a 20-day detention near the U.S. border with Mexico.

Yazmin Juarez told a House of Representatives subcommittee that it was “like they tore out a piece of my heart” when just weeks after they were released her daughter Mariee died at 19 months old.

She said she left a hospital with nothing but a piece of paper with two handprints in pink paint that staff had made for her, and described through a translator how she missed her daughter’s hugs.

Juarez said it was hard to relive the experience, but wanted to shed light on the lack of medical care. “The world should know,” she said.

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