(Texas Scorecard) – The Texas Department of Public Safety has recovered 25 unaccompanied children at the southwest land border.
According to DPS spokesman Chris Olivarez, DPS apprehended a group of 101 illegal aliens. Of those, 25 were children who did not have parents or legal guardians who crossed into the United States with them.
The children were ages three to 15. In addition to recovering the children, DPS also made 29 criminal trespass arrests.
“The 29 from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Ecuador, & Brazil were transported to the Val Verde Processing Center. The family groups & unaccompanied children were referred to the US Border Patrol,” Olivarez explained.
Unaccompanied minors encountered at the southwest land border are at a high risk for human trafficking.
Children encountered by immigration authorities at the border without parents or legal guardians present are transferred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement—which is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
ORR facilitates the connection of recovered unaccompanied minors to sponsors already inside the United States. Federal law requires that the ORR feed and shelter children until their release.
While both the HHS and the ORR assert that sponsors are usually family members, recently surfaced evidence suggests that children are being handed off to strangers.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent admitted in a video published by Muckraker that children are falling victim to human trafficking as a result.
“We have the power to combat human trafficking, and we aren’t doing enough to use it. We have to do better, children from around the globe depend on it,” Selene Rodriguez, the Texas Public Policy Foundation campaign director for Secure & Sovereign Texas, told Texas Scorecard.