A 10-year-old boy was rescued by Texas State Troopers after he crossed the US border on Thanksgiving Day only to be abandoned by smugglers in a desolate stretch of territory.
The little boy, who came from El Salvador and was carrying only a cell phone, was alone and lost when he crossed into Maverick County, Texas.
He told state troopers through tears that he was hoping to find his parents, who came to the country earlier and trusted coyotes to deliver him to family in America, Texas Department of Public Safety Lieutenant Christopher Olivarez said in an X post sharing the video of the child.
The area has been a hotspot for unaccompanied migrant kids.
Just a few days ago, Texas authorities found a 2-year-old girl from El Salvador who crossed with 60 other unaccompanied children. The video of a Texas trooper’s interview with the tot, who said her parents were also already in the US, went viral, sparking outrage over the border crisis.
“As many of us are celebrating Thanksgiving with our families & friends. Let’s not forget many children will not get to enjoy the holidays or see their families because they have been placed in a dire situation due to open border conditions, and many more who are trafficked across the southern border are exploited and exposed to a dangerous criminal environment during their journey to the US,” Olivarez said of the latest heartbreaking case.
Under the Biden administration, more than 529,000 migrant kids have entered the US, according to federal data.
A shocking federal watchdog report released in August revealed that the federal government lost track of roughly 320,000 migrant kids who made the harrowing trek across the border without their parents.
Once in the US, Border Patrol agents place the children into the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the agency tasked with vetting their sponsors in the US.
Tara Lee Rodas, a whistleblower who worked under the HHS program, told The Post earlier this week that the federal agency merely makes a phone call to the child’s sponsor to verify they’re expecting the child.
“We’re picking up the phone. … We’re not seeing this person face to face,” she said of the alleged responsible caregiver on the other end.
“We’re not doing DNA testing, and we’re turning small children over to someone in the US that the child gets a piece of paper and says, ‘This is where I’m going.’ I mean nobody’s questioning that,” Rodas said.
Some of those sponsors have turned out to be gang members and sex and labor traffickers, said Rodas.
“This is such a stain on our nation,” she said.
Olivarez called the trend “concerning,” saying that state authorities “don’t know exactly what happens to them on their journey and where they ended up afterwards.”
