Surge of Unaccompanied Children Crossing U.S.-Mexico Border During Holidays
Most crossed from Mexico into Texas
The cartel human smugglers along the border with Mexico did not take a break for the holidays
DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez - during an interview on NewsNation - said more than 100 children - most of them in Texas - crossed the US Southern Border from Mexico without parents during Thanksgiving week.
Sixty of those children were brought across the Rio Grande into Texas among a larger group of 211 migrants in Maverick County on Sunday, November 24, 2024. The children ranged in age from two to seventeen years old.
Other incidents of children crossing the border without family members include one documented by a surveillance camera in Val Verde County, Texas on Friday, November 29, 2024.
The camera captured the smuggler running toward the Rio Grande in Mexico carrying a child - and then illegally crossing the border into Texas. Texas State Troopers arrested the human smuggler during a traffic stop. They also recovered the child and apprehended a Mexican woman riding with the pair who said she was the child's mother - and had paid $8,000 for her daughter to be smuggled into the U.S.
The mother and child were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. The smuggler was arrested by Texas DPS Officers and faces state charges.
The rescue of the child and the apprehension of her mother and human smuggler came one day after Texas DPS Officers in Maverick County rescued a ten-year-old Salvadoran boy found crying and alone on Thanksgiving Day in a remote section of Maverick County after being abandoned by human smugglers there and left for dead.
DPS Lt. Chris Olivarez posted news of the child's plight not long after the encounter with his officers - one that likely saved the boy's life:
"As many of us are celebrating Thanksgiving with our families & friends. Let’s not forget many children will not get to enjoy the holidays or see their families because they have been placed in a dire situation due to open border conditions, and many more who are trafficked across the southern border are exploited and exposed to a dangerous criminal environment during their journey to the US. " -Lt. Chris Olivarez, Texas Department of Public Safety (Thanksgiving Day, 2024)
The number of children crossing the U.S. Southern Border alone has skyrocketed over the past four years - according to a chart released by GOP Senators based on US Customs & Border Protection data:
The Republican Senators who released the report blame the stark increase on immigration policies implemented by the Biden Administration:
"Under President Biden and Vice President Harris, the number of Unaccompanied Children (UCs) crossing the southern border illegally reached and remains at historic highs. More than 500,000 UCs have crossed the southern border illegally under the Biden-Harris administration alone."
Is enough being done to prevent children being smuggled into the U.S. along our Southern Border?
Share your opinion in the comments on this article!
Share your opinion in the comments on this article!
Abrazos,
Jack Beavers
