In Battle Against MS-13, Focus Shifts to Unaccompanied Minors

Unaccompanied children arriving in the US are often escaping violence in Central America, only to become prime recruitment targets for the MS-13 gang

Border Patrol Agents talk to unaccompanied minors who just crossed over the US–Mexico border, before loading them in a van for transport to an Office of Refugee and Resettlement facility, in Hidalgo County, Texas, on May 26, 2017. Benjamin Chasteen/The Epoch Times

MISSION, Texas—The Border Patrol truck brakes as three figures walk up the dirt road, clutching water bottles. A 15-year-old girl and her 11-year-old cousin from Honduras have just crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico with another 15-year-old boy from El Salvador. They are now known as unaccompanied minors—children under 18 who cross the border illegally without a parent or guardian.

We meet on the side of the road, and Border Patrol agents shepherd the children to a sliver of shade to wait for a van to pick them up. Border Patrol is obliged to transfer unaccompanied minors to the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within a maximum of 72 hours.