Two young migrant children were abandoned at the US border by smugglers who fled back to Mexico, leaving them with nothing but a note for authorities.
Chris Olivarez, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, announced on Saturday that its troopers recovered the two young girls, ages five and nine, from the Eagle Pass crossing.
The girls, originally from El Salvador, carried only a handwritten note with an address and phone number, Olivarez said.
They were then referred to US Border Patrol.
The incident comes amid a surge in unaccompanied migrant children crossing the United States border, oftentimes with phone numbers of addresses of relatives written on paper or stitched to their clothing, according to Fox News.
In such instances, the child is transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services and is released 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 did not show up for immigration court hearings – and Immigration and Customs Enforcement was ‘not able to account’ for their locations.
The report to Congress also noted that for more than 291,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors – or about two-thirds of the children who have made their way into the US – ICE had not bothered to serve them court dates.
Two unaccompanied migrant girls from El Salvador were left abandoned at the border crossing in Eagle Pass with only a handwritten note
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 stopped responding.
ICE, which is responsible for putting the children through immigration hearings, did not follow up with them either.
The agency was not required to alert HHS when a child failed to show up, despite the department creating an email inbox for ICE to notify them when a child is a no-show at a deportation hearing.
ICE officials were unable to tell the inspector general how often, if ever, deportation officers used it.
In response to the report, ICE said it would send an alert telling officers 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 is an increase from 212 during fiscal year 2023, but in fiscal year 2022, more than 4,000 unaccompanied migrant children were removed.
To deal with the surge, incoming President Donald Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has said the United States will return to a policy of putting unaccompanied migrant minors in detention centers – which were enforced under the first Trump administration.
The incident comes amid a surge in unaccompanied migrant children crossing the United States border
More than 50,000 unaccompanied migrant children have entered the United States during the Biden administration
‘We need to show the American people we can do this and not be inhumane about it. We can’t lose the faith of the American people,’ he told the Washington Post.
He said the Trump administration will try not to break families up if they deport the 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 exit the country together or be broken up.
Ultimately, Homan says, the goal will be to keep families together, regardless of the legality of how either the parents or the children got to the United States.
‘I’m not saying take them into custody. We’ll let them get the child and put them in proceedings with the child, so they can go to court and plead their case as a family.’
Incoming Border Czar Tom Homan plans to use ‘family detention centers’ seen in Donald Trump ‘s first term as part of the incoming administration’s plan to get tough on illegal migration
Biden had ended the use of the detention centers in 2021 by closing three dormitory-like facilities with approximately 3,000 beds
But Biden had ended the use of the detention centers in 2021 by closing three dormitory-like facilities with approximately 3,000 beds, and Homan’s proposal to bring them back has drawn ire from liberals.
Christopher Webb, who describes himself as a ‘lifelong Dem’ wrote on X: ‘CRUELTY IS STILL THE POINT.’
Yet Homan plans to go even further, bringing back Trump’s Remain in Mexico program – which forced asylum seekers to wait outside the country while they pled their case to American courts. Biden also ended this in 2021.
Homan admitted that ‘at the beginning’ illegal entries could rise slightly – this year, numbers are down after the Biden administration allowed numbers to get alarmingly high in 2023 – but eventually, 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 ending catch-and-release, the numbers will reduce.’
