Here they come again!
News Radio 1200 WOAI reports that the Border Patrol in Texas is seeing a rise in unaccompanied minors crossing the border from Mexico.
Chris Cabrera with the Border Patrol Council says this follows a relative lull in illegal border crossings, fueled by President Trump's tough talk about a border wall and other immigration enforcement actions.
Cabrera says, not only has the wall not been built, the practice of 'catch and release' never really ended, and the immigrant smugglers who are responsible for the great majority of illegal crossings have figured that out and adapted to it.
"We never put a physical stop to it, and the smugglers have figured that out," he said.
The most prominent unaccompanied minor who has crossed the border into Texas in recent months is a 17 year old girl from Central America who was raped by smuggling gangs and got pregnant. She had an abortion last week following a high profile court battle.
Officials say her story is not uncommon. The 'failed states' of El Salvador, Guatamala, and Honduras continue to be the leading source of illegal immigration into the U.S., and it is estimated that 60% of female immigrants, some as young as three, who make the journey toward the U.S. with the very well compensated help of smugglers, most of whom are associated with the Mexican cartels, are sexually assaulted by the traffickers.
Cabrera says his officers are also seeing more men arriving with young children, and he says many of the men have 'rented' the children from the cartels. He says that is because the smugglers know where the weaknesses in the U.S. border security systems are.
"We used to see more mothers with children, now we are seeing more fathers with children," he says. "They know that we have a lack of camp space for families with a male head of household."
He says the smugglers also know that any group that includes a child is far more likely to be released pending an immigration hearing, at which time they will simply vanish into the United States.