WASHINGTON – A Guatemalan mother whose baby girl died after being in a US immigration detention facility told lawmakers Wednesday the US is locking up children in cages as if “they were animals.”

“I’m here today because I don’t want any more little angels to suffer the way Mariee did and the way I am now. I don’t want any more mothers or fathers to lose children. It can’t be so hard for a country like the United States to protect kids who are locked up,” Yazmin Juárez told lawmakers at an House Oversight Committee hearing titled “Kids in Cages.”

In emotional testimony that brought some Capitol Hill lawmakers and staffers to tears, Juárez said her daughter died from a viral lung infection in May 2018 after not getting the proper diagnosis and medical treatment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Texas. Juárez and her daughter fled Guatemala to seek asylum in the United States and to start a better life.

Instead, Juárez said through an interpreter, “I watched my baby girl die slowly and painfully just a few months before her second birthday.”

The Democratic-led House Oversight subcommittee called the hearing to highlight what they say are dangerous and sickening conditions at border facilities and to call on the Trump Administration to end inhumane practices.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who recently visited migrants detained at the border, blamed a “culture of cruelty.” She is expected to testify before Congress on Friday about her experiences at the border.

“I think this testimony paired with what we saw firsthand at the border shows that neglect in of itself is a form of abuse and form of cruelty,” Ocasio-Cortez (Bronx/Queens) told the Post after the hearing.

“And when you know that a child is sick and you see this child getting sicker and you intentionally do not call an ambulance that is part of a culture of cruelty.”

Ocasio-Cortez also pointed to a secret Facebook page and misbehavior of border officials.

“That dehumanizing culture once it takes hold in an organization … people can die and they are dying,” she said.

Juárez, who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the government, said after she crossed into the United States she and her daughter slept on the cold floor of cramped border cell cage. Her otherwise healthy daughter got sick – losing almost 8 percent of her body weight in 10 days from vomiting — and didn’t get the necessary medical help despite begging for more care, Juárez said.

Mariee later died after being released from ICE detention.

“It is very hard to see so many children and for none of them to be my daughter … You have no idea how hard it is to move forward without my little girl. It’s like they tore out a piece of my heart, like they tore out my soul,” Juárez said.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) took issue with the title of the hearing called “Kids in Cages” and blamed the overcrowding conditions on Democrats refusing to acknowledge there was a migrant crisis at the border.

“I’ve seen the facilities and I’ve not seen a single cage in the way it’s being depicted,” Roy said, who said the chain-linked fences were designed to separate people and keep them safe.