“Leaving my son destroyed me,” Cruz said this month, speaking from the Guatemalan-Mexican border as she headed south towards Honduras. She said her son was with relatives in Texas. “The last thing he said was ‘let me go to study, work so I can help you’.”
Reuters spoke to over a dozen self-identified smugglers in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador to gain insight into how and why so many unaccompanied minors are moving through the region and crossing the border alone. All requested anonymity or nicknames in order to freely discuss the illegal industry.
More than half the smugglers consulted said they had transported unaccompanied minors in recent weeks, moving them by bus, car, boat and even by plane, which one well-connected smuggler called his network’s “faster new method” to bring children up from Central America.The trips cost thousands of dollars per child and are often financed by parents or relatives already in the United States.
But some smugglers said their networks have also been organizing children-only trips in recent weeks. Smugglers offer cheaper trips for families and unaccompanied children who plan to surrender themselves to U.S. border agents and ask for asylum, compared to those who seek to enter the United States undetected.
He estimated about 100 children were leaving the city of Huehuetenango, Guatemala, without their parents each week in March, which he said was well above ‘normal’ levels.In 2019, smugglers sped up trips to the U.S. border by transporting unaccompanied minors from Central America on express buses. Mexican immigration agents detained 95 people, including eight unaccompanied minors, for traveling without proper documentation after they arrived on two domestic commercial flights into the northern city of Monterrey on Friday. The majority were Hondurans, while there were also a handful of people from El Salvador, Cuba and Guatemala, according to Mexican immigration authorities.
CBP What a mess
CBP It seems much better to build a wall to prevent the influx of illegal immigrants than to let those who use children as a money-making tool do whatever they want.
CBP Withdrawals today !!! I really appreciate all you've done for me, you are the best and I promise to spread your good work Thank you Blaketeddy56
CBP AND NOW THEY ARE CAGES! DISGUSTING
CBP That's what Joe Biden said during the DNC Presidential primary debate ' If I'm elected I will allow all asylum seekers to make a surge at the southern border' -Joe Biden. Now a humanitarian crisis!