An 8-year-old girl who died while in US border custody on Wednesday had been detained for a week — more than twice the amount of time the government generally aims to hold migrants, particularly children, according to two people familiar with the situation.

The girl and her family were being held in a Customs and Border Protection facility in Harlingen, Texas, where they were waiting to be deported on a flight to Honduras. The family was among thousands of migrants who crossed the country’s southern border ahead of the expiration of a pandemic-era immigration rule that the authorities had feared would lead to a large influx of migrants and overcrowding at border holding facilities.

The people familiar with the situation spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Honduras’s foreign ministry identified the girl as Anadith Danay Reyes Álvarez, a Panamanian national known to her family as Ana, whowas born with a heart condition.

Her parents, who are Honduran, travelled to the US so that their daughter could have “a better life”, said Antonio García, the country’s foreign vice minister.

New York Times News Service