“My father told me to stay alone and take care of myself”: a seven year old Honduran girl was abandoned at the border

MISSION, Texas, EE.UU. (AP) – The seven-year-old Honduran girl, surrounded by strangers early in the morning, was determined to follow the other migrants. They were heading for the border with the United States.

his father had crossed Mexico with her by bus for 22 days and she returned to her country after leaving it in the hands of a young man who would help her cross the Rio Grande and reach Texas.

“He told me to stay alone and take care of myself”, the little girl mattered.

It is not known what happened to the man who was supposed to take care of her, but the girl joined a group heading for the border and left with them. They walked on a Sunday evening in the Rio Grande Valley (Grande in the United States). Temperatures have dropped to around 10 degrees Celsius (55 Fahrenheit) and the girl wore a yellow jacket with cartoon trains and a black mask to protect herself from COVID-19.

Their Odyssey Illustrates Parents’ Efforts to Get Their Children to the United Stateseven if that means they will be left alone on the most dangerous part of the trip.

These desperate decisions pose a serious dilemma for the Joe Biden government, which is trying to restore an orderly nursing home system.: In your efforts to act more humanely to protect minors traveling alone, you run the risk of putting more children in dangerous situations.

Nearly 9,500 minors arrived at the border in February, 60% more than the previous month. The government is working to have new facilities to house them and to speed up the processes to place them with relatives living in the United States. San Diego City Council said Monday it will use its convention center to house migrant children for an average of 30 to 35 days.

Adults traveling alone are almost always deported, while families are sometimes sent back to Mexico and sometimes allowed to stay in the country to seek asylum.

The girl was able to reach the United States. Another Honduran migrant, Fernanda Solís, 25, said she found her crying on a dirt road north of the Rio Grande after midnight, as a helicopter flew over the area and border officials spoke to migrants through a loudspeaker.

Solís tried to comfort the little girl who was cold, hungry and thirsty. He told her that they would walk together and surrender to the border patrol agents, then seek asylum.

The girl gained confidence as she walked along a route widely used by migrants from Central America. Responds to questions fluently. He said he was eight next month, that he should be in third grade, but was unable to complete the second due to the pandemic.

He was walking resolutely towards a country where he knows no one, only to a family member who lives in South Carolina.

“She’s a very brave girl,” said Solís..

The little girl remarked that the father had no money like to cross the border with her.

“Lost his job“, he underlined.

Solís said that the girl told her that the father had tried to cross the border with her recently, but that they had been deported and sent to Reynosa, Mexico, on the basis of special powers invoked by Donald Trump’s administration during the pandemic. Biden did not rule out these powers.

“The girl told me that they tried to cross together, but they were fired. This time, he sent her alone to surrender “to the authorities, Solís spoke.

A federal judge suspended deportations of unaccompanied minors in November. By then, the government of Trump had deported at least 8,800 minors. An appeals court of three Trump-appointed judges ruled in January that the removals could be resumed, but Biden decided to turn the children over to parents living in the United States, with appointments to appear in court in immigration.

Honduran girl handed over to customs and border protectionat. This body did not respond to requests for information on what had happened to it.

Its story has become very popular at the border. On Sunday, a Salvadoran approached a reporter and asked if his 13-year-old daughter could stay in the United States if she crossed the border alone.

“Parents say, “We cannot cross. We have to be realistic. But if we send the child to the bridge and they cross alone, they will have to meet them, ”said Jennifer Harbury, a human rights activist in Texas.

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