A migrant daycare worker has been denied bond and will remain in custody as she faces a criminal charge after a 4-year-old boy was found dead inside a daycare van in Brownsville, Texas, on June 27.
Karen Silva, 36, was arrested and charged with injury to a child causing death, a second-degree felony that under Texas law carries a penalty of two to 20 years in prison. Authorities say Logan Urbina was left inside the van for several hours on a day when interior vehicle temperatures are estimated to have reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Law enforcement responded to the daycare, The Learning Club Pre School, at about 4:56 p.m. on June 27 after staff discovered Logan unresponsive inside the parked vehicle; he was pronounced dead at the scene, according to local reports. Justice of the Peace Mary Esther Sorola told television station KRGV that staff had returned from a field trip at about 11:30 a.m. and the boy was left in the van when others unloaded.
Fellow employee Sendy Ruiz, 38, also faces the same charge and was arraigned with bond set at $60,000; Ruiz was later released. Silva’s bond had initially been set at $10,000, but her case became entangled with immigration proceedings after an immigration judge ordered her deported in September.
The Cameron County district attorney’s office intervened to block Silva’s removal from the United States so she could remain in Texas to face criminal prosecution. Following that intervention, a judge denied Silva bond, and she will remain in custody pending trial. No trial date has been announced.
Brownsville, on the U.S.-Mexico border across from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, registered daytime temperatures near 96 degrees that day. Federal safety guidance cited by local reporting notes that interior temperatures of parked vehicles can climb well above ambient temperatures — sometimes exceeding 120 degrees within minutes.
Officials at the daycare did not comment when contacted by news outlets. Reporters who visited the facility in the days after the death said lights were visible inside but staff declined to discuss the incident. A memorial of flowers, balloons and candles was left outside the center, and at least one parent reported withdrawing a child from the program in the aftermath.
Logan’s obituary described him as a happy child who loved dinosaurs, toys and the television show Paw Patrol. Relatives launched a GoFundMe campaign to help with funeral and other expenses.
Prosecutors and immigrant advocates have in recent years confronted overlapping criminal and immigration proceedings in cases where noncitizen defendants face state charges. In this case, prosecutors said the intervention to block deportation was intended to ensure the defendant remains available to face local charges. Defense attorneys and immigration authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Investigators have not released a timeline accounting for how the child came to be left in the vehicle for several hours. Authorities continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death and have not announced whether additional charges will be filed.