Children play at a makeshift encampment occupied by asylum-seekers sent back to Mexico from the US under the "Remain in Mexico" program.

McALLEN, Texas — A toddler waiting with his family at the southern border to seek asylum in the United States died Saturday after he was struck by a hit-and-run driver in the Mexican city of Matamoros.

Glady Cañas, an immigrant rights advocate in Matamoros, told BuzzFeed News the 2-year-old died Saturday night from his injuries. The indigenous boy, identified in Spanish-language media as Oscar, had traveled to Matamoros with his family from Chiapas in southern Mexico to seek refuge.

The child was struck by a driver of an SUV on Oct. 20, nearly a week before he died, Cañas said.

The Tamaulipas attorney general's office said an investigation into the child's death was underway.



The boy is the 20th child to die at the US–Mexico border this year, according to data from the International Organization for Migration — the highest number since the organization began tracking deaths along migratory routes for its “Missing Migrants Project" in 2014. The previous record, in 2018, was nine deaths.

The family of the toddler had been waiting at the international bridge linking Matamoros, Mexico, and Brownsville, Texas, along with other Mexican asylum-seekers for a chance to enter the US and request asylum. The practice of limiting the number of asylum-seekers and forcing immigrants to wait in Mexico is known as metering or queuing.

The toddler and his family are part of a growing number of Mexicans, many of them indigenous, who have traveled to Matamoros to request asylum from the US. Other cities along the border, including Ciudad Juárez, Nogales, and San Luis Río Colorado, are also seeing more Mexican asylum-seekers.

Many of those seeking asylum in the US cite violence as a reason for requesting protection. More than 23,000 people were killed in Mexico in the first eight months of this year, according to data from the Mexican government, a growing figure that at its current rate is expected to surpass the nation's record number of homicides reported in 2018.

