Texas Border: Children Abandoned by Human Smugglers on Rio Grande
Tragedy repeats itself near Eagle Pass
Texas State Troopers Saturday rescued two young children abandoned along the banks of the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass by a human smuggler who fled back to Mexico. The five and nine-year-old girls were from El Salvador and presented officers with a note containing a U.S. address and phone number. The Department of Public Safety (DPS) Officers turned the girls over to the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP). The heartbreaking scene is one that State and Federal Officers have seen before.
The ages of some of these abandoned children is shocking. In 2021, Border Patrol Agents found a three-month-old boy and a two-year-old girl from Honduras abandoned by smugglers (and left for dead) on the banks of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas.
In 2022, the Border Patrol took custody of 152,000 unaccompanied children at or near the U.S.-Mexico Border. Most of the children were from Central America.
Sometimes the ages of children abandoned along the Texas-Mexico border shocks even seasoned officers. In September 2023, Rio Grande City Border Patrol Agents found a 2-month-old child left abandoned at the border!
U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) provided details about the discovery of the baby in a statement given to NewsNation correspondent Ali Bradley:
This situation demonstrates the lack of regard for human lives by human smugglers along the border.
More often than not, the children abandoned by human smugglers along the Texas Border with Mexico are a bit older - but that does not make their plight any less hazardous.
Most of the children present officers from Texas, Arizona, and Federal Agents with contact information for relatives in the U.S. - although some critics worry about the accuracy of that information.
The numbers are staggering. For example, in the 2024 Fiscal Year alone, Del Rio (Texas) Sector Border Patrol agents have encountered nearly 11,000 unaccompanied children.
Border Patrol Agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector have encountered 21,000 unaccompanied children so far this fiscal year.
Children crossing the border alone into Texas is not a new trend - the photo below is of two Honduran brothers who crossed in Del Rio by themselves last year:
Some of these incidents have heartbreaking endings. In July 2023 Texas State Troopers found an unaccompanied 5-year-old girl from Honduras on the Rio Grande riverbank. They report that she had been discovered alone in Piedras Negras, Mexico by three women who brought her across the river.
Officers say the child told them her father was back in Honduras and that she had been sent to the United States alone to be reunited with her mother. Sadly, investigators later learned that her mother had passed away three days ago. The child was turned over to Border Patrol officers.
Is enough being done to protect children being smuggled into the U.S. along our Southern Border?
Share your opinion in the comments on this article!
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
𝗣𝗮𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗼𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗺 𝗶𝗻 𝗝𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗯𝗼𝗼𝘁𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗢𝗣'𝘀 𝗘𝗺𝗯𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗖𝗿𝘂𝗲𝗹𝘁𝘆
Nearly half of Republican voters—and their messianic figurehead, Donald Trump—are openly embracing one of the darkest chapters of modern history, endorsing policies that echo the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II or, worse, the grotesque state-led oppression seen in totalitarian regimes. According to a poll—conducted by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)—a staggering 56% of GOP voters support rounding up undocumented immigrants and locking them in military-run detention camps.
This chilling endorsement is not just a reflection of Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric but a damning indictment of his base, a faction increasingly divorced from democratic norms and unbothered by the stench of militarized xenophobia. These voters—claiming the mantle of “patriotism”—apparently believe that tanks and armed soldiers should police their imagined racial purity.
Even Robert P. Jones, the president of PRRI, admitted to feeling a kind of moral nausea at having to ask these questions in the first place, yet here we are. Trump’s playbook of exploiting baseless fear and resentment to target vulnerable populations seems to be working, with his supporters willing to abandon reason, humanity, and basic arithmetic (since there are far fewer undocumented immigrants than Trump falsely claims).
Trump’s ludicrous suggestion of deporting 21 million people—a number he manufactured out of thin air—is as impractical as it is draconian, requiring a network of camps and a military apparatus that reeks of fascist ambition. Worse, this same demographic cheers him on as he hints at using the military not just against immigrants but against his political enemies—activists, journalists, and anyone daring to challenge his authority—whom he ominously calls “the enemy within.”
What does it say about a political party when nearly half its members are comfortable aligning with policies that would necessitate military force, disregard civil liberties, and perpetuate human suffering on an industrial scale? This isn’t just ignorance; it’s a willful embrace of authoritarian cruelty. If these are the policies Trump and his supporters celebrate, then they are not conservatives—they are extremists masquerading as patriots, and they represent a grave threat to the ideals America claims to stand for.
https://substack.com/@patricemersault