Two days after a Guatemalan child died in federal custody, Homeland Security officials said they were conducting medical exams on all young migrants in immigration facilities.

Felipe Alonzo-Gomez, 8, who had been held at four Customs and Border Protection facilities over six days, died the night of Christmas Eve at a hospital in Alamogordo, N.M. He was the second migrant to die in custody this month.

Seven-year-old Jakelin Caal died on Dec. 8. Her funeral was Tuesday in Guatemala.

They were the first migrant children to die in federal custody in more than a decade, Department of Homeland Security officials said Wednesday morning. Six adult migrants died in CBP custody between October 2017 and September.

Homeland Security officials said they are detaining between 1,400 to 1,500 migrant children.

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The exams were being conducted by a variety of medical personnel and using multiple methods, depending on the location of the facilities, DHS officials said, adding that they were nearly 95 percent done with the medical checkups by Wednesday morning.

Growing numbers of migrants in custody are showing signs of illness, officials said. In response, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has asked the Centers for Disease Control to investigate the trend.

Many of the federal facilities and systems, officials acknowledged, were designed for the custody of single, adult males, not for children or family units.

DHS officials did not explain why there was no EMT available the day Felipe died.

On Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, said in a press conference that conditions at Border Patrol stations are “subhuman.”

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He had led a delegation tour of the Lordsburg Border Patrol Station in New Mexico after Jakelin died.

“We have people who are strewn on the floor, covered in Mylar blankets, which look like foil. They are body-to body, people having to literally step all over each other to go to the restroom or to move around,” Castro said.

He said that before building a border wall, more money should be funneled to DHS to fill in the “basic humanitarian” necessities at these facilities.

He and several other Democratic lawmakers are calling for a congressional hearing to investigate the two migrant children deaths.

Coast Guard and Department of Defense medical personnel are also being drawn into the investigation, Nielsen announced.

She said 1,500 medically trained agents and officers are working at the border, an increase in staffing that came after Jakelin died in CBP custody.

“Moving forward, all children will receive a more thorough hands-on assessment at the earliest possible time post apprehension — whether or not the accompanying adult has asked for one,” she said in a statement.

Nielsen said she’ll be visiting Border Patrol stations to observe their conditions later this week.

Congressman Raul Ruiz, D-California, an emergency room doctor who is trained in humanitarian disaster work, said the lack of emergency equipment and standardized health care at the facilities is worse than he’s seen in impoverished or disaster-stricken countries.

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“There’s this culture of just rushing and rapidly trying to process individuals, without really doing a meaningful screening. That’s the problem, too — they’re not consistent throughout their different ports of entry,” Ruiz said.

DHS officials said a longstanding court settlement that limits detention of young migrants to 72 hours applies only to unaccompanied children. As a result, the mandate didn’t apply to Felipe, the officials said, because he was with his father and considered a “family unit.”

Nielsen blamed the uptick in families and children crossing the border on the U.S. immigration system, which she said “prevents parents who bring their children on a dangerous and illegal journey from facing consequences for their actions.”

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Felipe was coughing and his eyes looked glossy.

The Guatemalan boy was at the Alamogordo Border Patrol Station a week after he and his father were apprehended by agents near El Paso. Alamogordo is about 90 miles from El Paso.

Nearly 15 hours later, after bouts of vomiting and signs of nausea, moving to and from the Gerald Champion Regional Medical Center and a nearby Border Patrol checkpoint on Highway 70, Felipe was pronounced dead.

That same day, thousands of miles away, the small, white casket of Jakelin had arrived in her Guatemalan village, which lacks running water, electricity and paved streets.

On Christmas, as news broke of Felipe’s death, family and neighbors lowered her casket into the ground.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net | @SilviaElenaFF