A 5-year-old child was abandoned by smugglers along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a report.
A man and woman were filmed helping the young boy cross the Rio Grande River last Thursday before abandoning him by a barbed-wire fence delineating the border between Ciudad Juarez and El Paso, Texas, despite the young boy’s cries for them not to leave, New York Post reported.
“Where are you going?” the boy screamed in Spanish, clutching a teddy bear as he sobbed. “No, no, no. Don’t leave.”
WHITE HOUSE: VIDEO OF ABANDONED MIGRANT BOY IS ‘HEARTBREAKING’
Moments later, agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection picked the boy up.
The woman told Agence France-Presse, which originally obtained and reported on the video, the child’s parents live in the United States, and the boy is from Mexico.
Since the recent uptick in migrants traversing the southern border, several reports have emerged of abandoned children, particularly in the Rio Grande region. A video in April showed a 10-year-old Nicaraguan boy separated from a group of migrants sobbing as he asked Border Patrol agents for help.
On April 2, surveillance cameras monitored by CBP agents in California captured two smugglers scaling a ladder to lift two young children over the barrier and dropping them into the U.S.
Between 1998 and 2019, CBP agents stationed along the southern border recovered approximately 7,800 bodies. The agency’s statistics reveal a shift in the demographics of people illegally crossing the border. While most migrant apprehensions in the 2000s and early 2010s were mostly adults, a greater percentage of families and children are now encountered along the border.
The U.S. is facing a large number of migrants, particularly unaccompanied minors, crossing the southern border. More than 178,000 migrants were encountered at the border in April, according to data collected by CBP. Reports indicate that an unprecedented 117,000 migrant children will enter the U.S. by the end of the year.
In the most recent border surge prior to this one, 80,000 unaccompanied minors arrived at the southern border in 2019.
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Vice President Kamala Harris, who heads a lead role in addressing the substantial uptick in migrants, said she will travel to the Northern Triangle in Central America, including stops in Mexico and Guatemala, to discuss the root causes of the surge. President Joe Biden has indicated plans to visit the border, but specific travel plans have not been announced.
Representatives for CBP did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment.
