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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | December 2005 
Children Smuggled North for Holidays
 Lynn Brezosky - Associated Press
| | When border officials discover the ruse, the children are sent back. If the family can't be found, they are sent to a Mexican children's shelter. |
An increasing number of smuggling suspects have been arrested trying to bring children from Mexico, an annual problem as illegal immigrants working in the United States arrange to have their kids shipped north for holiday reunions.
Officials don't keep borderwide statistics on such arrests, but David Moreno, immigration chief for U.S. Customs and Border Protection for the two bridges from Hidalgo to Reynosa, Mexico, said there were attempts to smuggle nine children there in late November alone.
"That's natural, to try to be united," he said. "Unfortunately for the children, they're putting them in danger when they're being smuggled, and that's what we're trying to deter. We have real small children, infants, being smuggled in."
Illegal immigrants who miss their children this time of year ask friends or smugglers to bring them across by passing them off as their own children or U.S. citizens, said Rick Pauza, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection in Laredo.
That was the case in a handful of recent arrests at the Hidalgo bridge in deep South Texas.
In late November, 41-year-old Maria Guadalupe Rodriguez of Pharr was arrested on suspicion of smuggling after telling agents that a 10-month-old baby was hers, authorities said.
Days before, 45-year-old Lilia Pineda of Richmond was arrested after producing false U.S. birth certificates for children ages 8 and 13 who she claimed were grandchildren, authorities said. The children were Honduran, and the birth certificates belonged to her real grandchild and another child.
And not long after, 31-year-old Victoria Lyn Sanchez of Houston drove across the same bridge with two girls, 11 and 12, who she said were her nieces, authorities said. They turned out to be unrelated Mexican citizens.
When border officials discover the ruse, the children are sent back. If the family can't be found, they are sent to a Mexican children's shelter.
The smugglers seem to favor high-volume port cities, Pauza said. Parents take a gamble on getting past customs rather than having the kids try to swim across the Rio Grande or trek across the desert.
"We have seen cases where children are given some kind of cough medicine to either help them sleep or make it so that they can't answer questions," said Brian Levin, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection in Tucson, Ariz.
This year, more than 800 children whose relatives couldn't be located have been sent to the Reynosa shelter, said Sandra Mendoza, Mexican vice consul in McAllen. |
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