Migrant children abandoned at US border with nothing but a note for authorities

Two young migrant children were abandoned at the US border by smugglers fleeing back to Mexico, leaving them with nothing but a note for authorities.

Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, announced Saturday that troops recovered the two young girls, ages five and nine, from the Eagle Pass crossing.

The girls, originally from El Salvador, had only a handwritten note with an address and phone number, Olivarez said.

They were then referred to the U.S. Border Patrol.

The incident comes amid a wave of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border into the United States, often with phone numbers or addresses of relatives written on paper or taped to their clothing. according to Fox News.

In such cases, the child is transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services and transferred to a sponsor in the United States.

But earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General shockingly revealed that over the past five years, more than 32,000 unaccompanied minors failed to show up for immigration court hearings — and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement ‘could not be held accountable’ for their locations.

The report to Congress also noted that ICE had not bothered to provide court hearings for more than 291,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors — or about two-thirds of children entering the U.S.

It noted that the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for placing migrant children with sponsors, but the agency lost track of tens of thousands of them after the children and their sponsors became unresponsive.

ICE, which is responsible for getting the children through immigration hearings, also failed to follow up on them.

The agency was not required to alert HHS when a child did not show up, despite the department creating an email inbox so that ICE could notify them when a child did not show up for a deportation hearing.

ICE officials could not tell the inspector general how often deportation officers used it.

In response to the report, ICE said it would send out an alert telling agents to start using it.

Meanwhile, the agency’s fiscal year 2024 report found that despite a surge of more than 500,000 unaccompanied migrant children into the United States during the Biden administration, only 411 were removed, according to Fox.

That’s an increase from 212 in fiscal year 2023, but more than 4,000 unaccompanied migrant children were removed in fiscal year 2022.

To deal with the surge, President Donald Trump’s incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has said the United States will return to a policy of placing unaccompanied migrant children in detention centers — a policy enforced under the first administration. Trump.

The incident comes amid a wave of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the border into the United States

More than 50,000 unaccompanied migrant children have entered the United States during the Biden administration

“We have to show the American people that we can do this and not be inhumane about it. We cannot lose the faith of the American people,” he told The Guardian WashingtonPost.

He said the Trump administration will try not to break up families if they deport parents for being in the United States illegally.

Instead, the families — who may have young children born in the United States — will be told to decide for themselves whether to leave the country together or split up.

Ultimately, Homan says, the goal will be to keep families together, regardless of the legality of how the parents or children ended up in the United States.

“I’m not saying you should take them into custody. We let them take the child and put them in a proceeding with the child so they can go to court and argue their case as a family.”

Incoming border czar Tom Homan plans to use ‘family detention centers’ from Donald Trump’s first term as part of new administration’s plan to crack down on illegal migration

Biden had ended the use of the detention centers in 2021 by closing three dormitories with about 3,000 beds

But Biden had ended use of the detention centers in 2021 by closing three dormitories with about 3,000 beds, and Homan’s proposal to bring them back has drawn the ire of liberals.

Christopher Webb, who describes himself as a “lifelong Dem,” wrote on X: “Cruelty is still the point.”

Still, Homan plans to go even further and bring back Trump’s Remain in Mexico program — which forced asylum seekers to wait outside the country while they argued their cases in U.S. courts. Biden also put an end to this in 2021.

Homan conceded that illegal entries might rise slightly “initially” — numbers have dropped this year after the Biden administration allowed numbers to become alarmingly high in 2023 — but ultimately the Trump programs will deter people from coming .

“They’re going to try to come illegally, but once the message is clear that we’re going to stop catch and release, the numbers will drop.”