Texas Border Patrol Agents discovered a missing juvenile on a riverbank who had been abandoned by his mother, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) said on Monday.
CBP said that its Del Rio Sector received a notification from the Guatemalan Consulate about a missing child on Nov. 30, along with a possible location, a picture of the child, and the juvenile’s name.
Shortly later, Del Rio Sector personnel identified the child as having been part of a group of 13 illegal immigrants on Nov. 23, but, according to CBP, the child was found with fake documents.
After probing further, officials found that the child had been accompanied by his mother when they both illegally crossed the U.S–Mexico border near Del Rio.
The mother abandoned her son on the U.S. side of the riverbank and returned to Mexico, CBP said.
“This event highlights the dangerous situations in which small migrant children are often placed. Sometimes, even their own parents contribute,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Jason D. Owens said in a statement. “I am proud of the diligence and dedication of our agents as they once again transitioned from an enforcement role to a humanitarian mission.”
Del Rio Sector personnel worked closely with the Guatemalan Consulate to reunite the child with his mother, CBP said.
The federal agency noted that in October, Del Rio Sector agents encountered 804 unaccompanied children, a 98 percent increase from October last year.
The reporting week encompassed the seven days from Oct. 27 through Nov. 2, and according to the previous week’s numbers and a report from May, the numbers have been this high for months.
Law enforcement arrested 48 fugitives and 13 gang members. In addition, more than 4,000 pounds of marijuana, 669 pounds of methamphetamine, and 87 pounds of cocaine were seized. Also confiscated were 27 handguns, three long guns, and more than $188,000 in cash.
In the past six months, three separate currency seizures each exceeded $1.5 million.
The Border Operations Sector Assessment reports, labeled “law enforcement sensitive,” are issued weekly to law enforcement personnel and government recipients, but the public is kept in the dark about the extent of border crime and illegal activity in their respective areas. The reports emanate from the Border Security Operations Center, run by the Texas Rangers, which collates information from Border Patrol, as well as state law enforcement and participating local law enforcement.
Just shy of 22,000 illegal aliens were apprehended on average per week in Texas over the past four weeks—68 percent of whom were from countries other than Mexico. Extrapolated for a year, that would mean more than 1.1 million illegal alien apprehensions along the Texas–Mexico border alone. The report doesn’t estimate how many individuals evaded apprehension.
The number of illegal crossings at the southern border has steadily risen since October 2020, and particularly since President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20 and moved to quickly sign flurry of executive orders that dismantled his predecessor’s border security measures.
