Children trapped in illegal immigration schemes can quickly and easily fall victim to trafficking smugglers, even if they are accompanied by their parents as they cross the U.S. border. That’s exactly what happened on 1-35 in Laredo, TX this past weekend. But for the swift response of U.S. Border Patrol Agents a child might have been lost forever.
A Honduran family hired
smugglers to help them enter the country.
When they crossed into Texas the smugglers separated the parents from
their child, telling them they had to place their nine-year old son in a
different van. When the parents and others in their vehicle were apprehended by
Border Patrol Agents they told their story of being separated from their son. The Agents immediately went into action,
checking for the boy in every vehicle they pulled over. They found him in a van
driven by a woman claiming that he was her child. The boy was reunited with his
family after her claim was refuted by the parents’ documentary proof of their
parentage. The driver, a U.S. citizen, was arrested and turned over to the
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations
unit.
“If not for the vigilance of the agents who only had a physical description to go on, this child would have been taken by smugglers further into our country without his family, and left helplessly under the control of strangers,” Chief Patrol Agent Matthew Hudak warned. “Putting your life, and the life of your family, in the hands of vicious and callous criminal organizations is a potentially fatal mistake.”
Family restoration is a central principle of legal immigration, but when families resort to illegal immigration they can be seriously endangering their children.
Children are protected from trafficking schemes by faithful U.S. Border Patrol Agents who are, as required by law, always looking out for the best interests of all children.
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