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Two young children were rescued in a remote part of the New Mexico-Mexico border after being dumped by someone on top of a 14-foot-high barrier on Tuesday night, officials said.
The border patrol called it the work of human smugglers, and one area chief called it appalling and vicious. The head of the Department of Homeland Security described the mistreatment of children by smugglers as morally reprehensible.
Girls, 3 and 5, from Ecuador, were seen on camera being dumped over the border fence west of Mt. Cristo Rey in far southeastern New Mexico, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Service said.
They were found, taken to hospital for assessment and medically cleared, the agency said.
A video posted online by Gloria I. Chavez, chief patrol officer for the El Paso area, appears to show someone riding the top of the border fence and lowering and dropping off the children on the US side.
We then see two men on the Mexican side flee, leaving the children alone on the other side.
“I am appalled by the way these smugglers viciously dumped innocent children from a 14 foot border fence last night,” Chavez said in a statement. She said if they had not been seen the girls could have been left in the desert for hours.
“We are currently working with our law enforcement partners in Mexico and trying to identify these ruthless smugglers in order to hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” Chavez said.
Immigration officials have recorded a dramatic increase in encounters with unaccompanied children over the past month.
A border patrol official at an overcrowded facility in Donna, Texas, in the southeastern state, said Tuesday that “smugglers are just dropping them off” near the border, referring to the children.
The two young children who were dropped off in the United States by the border fence were in border patrol pre-trial detention, awaiting placement by DHSS, the border agency said.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas condemned the inhumane abuse of young children by smugglers on Wednesday, referring to Tuesday’s incident in New Mexico and others. Earlier this month, a 9-year-old child died after three migrants attempted to cross the Rio Grande River.
“The inhumane way in which smugglers abuse children while taking advantage of the desperation of parents is criminal and morally reprehensible,” Mayorkas said.
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