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 Editorials | Issues | March 2008 
Investigation: Deporting Children
 Victor Castillo - Action 4
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The number of unaccompanied Mexican children who have entered the United States illegally and been deported from the Rio Grande Valley has more than quadrupled over the past few years.
The Mexican Consulate in McAllen told Action 4 News that the number of unaccompanied minors who have been repatriated to Mexico has increased from 384 in 2001 to more than 1,700 in 2007.
"In the two months that have past and the first week of March, we have almost 400 children," said Mexican Consul Miriam Medel.
The minors range from newborns to late teens.
Once they're captured by the Border Patrol's McAllen sector, they are repatriated back to Reynosa.
The children are then temporarily housed at a shelter until family members come to pick them up.
The repatriation process is overseen by the Mexican Consulate.
Luis Carlos Adame runs the children's shelter.
He says the kids sleep in bunkbeds, receive food, clothing and medication if necessary to keep them healthy.
Our cameras were rolling when six minors are taken here by Mexican immigration agents.
Two of the kids started running away in a last ditch effort to escape.
In today's tour of the Reynosa shelter, Action 4 News found two children of Honduran descent who claimed to be Mexican so that they could be deported to Mexico instead of Honduras.
"The coyotes...what they do is they separate families," Consul Medel said. "They send the parents through the river and they send the young children, young children in a car through the bridge with a U.S. Citizen who claims to be his mother."
Small spaces and hidden compartments are where many of the kids seek refuge.
It's not the case for 17-year old "Adan".
He says he tried walking for days to avoid the Falfurrias checkpoint only to be captured by Border Patrol.
"Border Patrol agents detained me when I was hiding with a group of immigrants," Adan said in Spanish. "They located us with a helicopter."
Medel said they see a lot of cases like Adan's.
"The border patrol is being very efficient in getting the children and in stopping them, and giving them back to us and then ultimately back to Mexico," she said.
The rise in the number of minors repatriated to Mexico comes as the United States is looking at building hundreds of miles of border fencing while legislators try to solve the illegal immigration problem. |
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