Immigrant gives birth on banks of Rio Grande
By JOSÉ BORJÓN — The Brownsville Herald
September 22, 2007 - 11:29PM
brownsvilleherald.com
Some women are in labor more than 24 hours, while others have their babies before they can make it to the hospital.
So it was on Sept. 7, when the Brownsville Fire Department transported a husband and wife, who had just given birth, to Valley Baptist Medical Center-Brownsville. The parents, names unknown, were discharged the following day along with their newborn baby boy.
This couple didn’t travel from home to the hospital, but from the banks of the Rio Grande.
It was shortly after 9:30 a.m. on Sept. 7 when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was called by a man who told her his wife was about to give birth to their baby on the banks of the river.
“The assistance occurred Sept. 7 at approximately 9:45 a.m. when a Border Patrol agent from the Fort Brown station patrolling the east side of Brownsville encountered a man walking on the levee near the Rio Grande,” said Oscar Saldaña, spokesman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley Sector.
The Border Patrol agent went to a brushy area where the woman was found lying on the ground about to give birth, Saldaña said.
“The agent immediately requested medical attention and assisted the woman through the delivery,” he said. “The agent wanted to do whatever she could to help her out in that situation.”
Saldaña explained that many times the general public is not aware that the job of border patrol agents is to help those in need, whatever the situation might be.
“At that point our primary (goal) is to get medical attention,” he said.
According to the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, anyone born on U.S. soil is an American citizen, but Saldaña would not comment on the child’s legal status.
“I’m not going to get into that issue.”
Saldaña said he did not know the woman nor man’s names, adding his agency only took an incident reported but did not question their legal status in the U.S. After they were discharged, they were not taken into custody by Border Patrol, according to Saldaña.
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