A 4-year-old boy from Honduras was found wandering alone near the Rio Grande river on the Mexican side of the border, according to a report, in the latest instance of the danger faced by young migrants in their journey north.
The boy was walking toward the border in an area thick with trees near Reynosa, Mexico, a city across from McAllen, Texas, that has been plagued by violence, Reuters reported, citing Mexican immigration officials.
A group of three mothers and six children were also found in the same area, but the women said they did not know the boy.
The women and the children — all from Honduras — were spotted running for cover in the trees during a flyover of the area.
The unaccompanied boy, who was not named, is among the thousands of minors who have made the trek from Central America or Mexico to the US border since President Biden took office in January.
Migrants sleep under a gazebo at a park in the Mexican border city of Reynosa. AP/Dario Lopez-MillsThe thousands of children have overwhelmed the federal border facilities and represent a pressing crisis for the administration that appears to continue to worsen.
A Border Patrol agent talked about the dangerous journey that the immigrants, including children, make to the border in an interview with media outlets this week.
Central American migrants who managed to cross illegally into the US in order to seek asylum stay under a park gazebo after they were sent back to Mexico by US border authorities. AP/Dario Lopez-MillsOscar Escamilla, acting executive officer for the Border Patrol in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, described the crowded conditions the children are being housed in after the arduous journey to the US, and related the tale of one young girl who couldn’t speak after being gang-raped.
Migrants are led by a US Customs and Border Protection agent at the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge while being deported to Reynosa, Mexico. AP/Julio Cortez“About a month and a half ago, I was back here talking to one of the little girls, you know, and I told the congressional delegation just the same thing. Right,” he said in the interview.
A group of migrants (right) in Hidalgo, Texas, are deported to Reynosa, Mexico. AP/Julio Cortez“We were going to send her to the hospital. And as I got closer to her, I noticed that she couldn’t speak. And I asked the medical staff what happened. And the reason she was going to the hospital was because she had gotten gang-raped. And the reason that she couldn’t speak was because she had lost her voice in the process while she was getting raped. Those things hit hard.”
