A 2-year-old child who was traveling with the migrant caravan was found without her parents in California after crossing the border into the United States.
The group was apprehended 2 miles north of the border near Campo.
The teenager carrying the little girl told agents that the child was with her mother the previous day but she became tired and asked someone to carry her, so the teen did. The group became separated before crossing into the United States and the teen couldn’t locate the mother.
The 2-year-old was taken to a local child-holding facility and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is attempting to find her mother to reunite the pair.
Predators, Gang Members Arrested
Recent arrests near the border have also included gang members and predators.After a three-hour search, agents found the group and confirmed they were all illegal aliens, from the countries of Ecuador, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico.
One 18th Street gang member was nabbed near Fronton and two others were arrested near Artecitas. One man arrested earlier in the day near Artecitas was previously convicted of lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14.
Agents found an MS-13 gang member working in Los Ebanos while agents found another 18th Street gang member near Hidalgo who also had an active warrant from California for domestic violence.
The arrests on Tuesday also included a Honduran national apprehended near Roma, whose record checks revealed he had been convicted in North Carolina for indecent liberties with a child.
Claims of Credible Fear Increase
The Border Patrol said on Dec. 10 that claims of credible fear, or applications for asylum, have increased.There were 521,090 total apprehensions in fiscal year 2018, which ended with September. Out of those, 18 percent, or nearly 93,000 aliens, claimed credible fear.
The increase continues a trend and represented a jump from 13 percent in the prior fiscal year. In that year, just 55,584 migrants claimed credible fear. In the fiscal years from 2000 to 2013, fewer than 1 percent of migrants claimed credible fear.
Credible fear is when migrants have any fear or concern about being returned to their home country or last country of residence. Agents also ask if a migrant would be harmed if they were returned.
“As the majority of these claims will not be successful when they are adjudicated by an immigration court, we need Congress to act to address these vulnerabilities in our immigration system, which continue to negatively impact border security efforts.”