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 News from Around the Americas | June 2005 
Holding Smuggler's Hand, Children Cross Border
 Wire services
El Paso, Texas - Authorities are witnessing a surge in the number of people smuggling children across the U.S.-Mexico border by falsely identifying them as their nieces and nephews.
According to statistics from the Mexican consulate in El Paso, U.S. authorities repatriated 2,852 children to Mexico in 2004. Of those, 1,121 were from border towns and 1,731 were from rest of the country.
The figures are double those of 2001, when 1,418 children were repatriated, 626 from the border area principally Chihuahua state and 792 from such states as Zacatecas, Guerrero and Mexico.
Many children crossed border checkpoints with women or couples who were paid up to US300 to pass them off as their nieces or nephews.
Once in El Paso, they are put in the care of strangers until their parents pick them up.
Yadira, an El Paso resident who did not want to be identified, said a couple approached her while she was waiting at a border checkpoint, and asked if she would take their daughter to El Paso.
"They told us the child's mother was on the U.S. side, and they lacked the passports necessary to take her there," Yadira said. "I became distrustful and said no."
The couple, she said, had a birth certificate certifying the child was a U.S. citizen. "I got the impression it was false," Yadira said.
Normally, parents who are U.S. citizens or residents declare their children's immigration status to Immigration and Customs inspectors. In most cases, they are not asked to produce a birth certificate.
A woman who claimed to be a contact for a "pollero" or people-smuggler, said traffickers pay couples to take a child over the border, where it is are then¨"adopted."
The woman said an 8-yearold boy named Luis was placed in her care. She found it difficult to suppress her tears when asked about him.
Luis, she said, was separated from his parents when they arrived in Ciudad Juárez from Guatemala.
Early one morning, he was handed to strangers who were paid US300 to take him to El Paso by claiming him as their nephew.
The tactic is used by many immigrants to avoid subjecting their children to the dangers of crossing the Rio Grande or the desert.
Sometimes, they do so under pressure from a "coyote," or smuggler, who warns them that crossing is more difficult with small children in tow.
When Luis' parents were delayed, the boy spent time with acquaintances of the smuggler, who charges parents US50 a night.
If the smuggler does not hear from the parents in 15 days, he returns the child to his country of origin, she said.
Sometimes, however, the smuggler doesn't have enough information to return a child to its relatives.
"I haven't had that problem. All the parents arrived," she said, adding Luis'parents made it.
Yet dozens of other children wait for days with strangers who may not know what to do with a child if their parents die while crossing the border. |
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