A teenager was reported missing in Key House Padre, Texas, in the south-west of the country, police said

Brownsville Detective JJ Treviño said the police were called to the address of Southwest Key Casa Padre after learning that a 15-year-old boy had fled the facility, the largest center for migrant children the United States.

Jeff Eller, spokesperson for the nonprofit Southwest Key Programs, which runs the facility, confirmed that a teenager left the center on Saturday and that officials at the center said he was not there. establishment called the local law enforcement agencies. A US Health & Human Services official confirmed that a boy had fled, but he could not confirm what had happened to him afterwards.

Officers searched the surroundings and water courses to find the teenager, but they did not find him. The police entered the boy's information into the missing children database.

The "father" was informed that the child had left the property of the care facility, the source told CNN. On Sunday afternoon, the "father" said that the 15-year-old had called him and that he was back in Mexico after crossing the river, the source told CNN. The child receives money from his "father" to return to Honduras, the source said.

"I can tell you that he's alive," said the source about the 15-year-old.

Casa Padre's staff is not allowed to hold children back when they decide to leave, the source said.

Eller, the spokesman for Southwest's key programs, said the same thing. "As a licensed child care center, if a child tries to leave one of our facilities, we can not restrict it," he said. "We are not a detention center, we talk to them and try to make them stay, if they call the forces of order when they leave the property.

As soon as children cross the property line of the care facility, they become, by law, a missing child under the jurisdiction of the local police department, according to the source. The source did not know if the children in the care facility knew that they could leave the facility at any time. When a child leaves, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is informed.

During this exercise, more than 19,000 children were cared for by Southwest's key programs and fewer than 50 children chose to leave the health centers alone, the source said.

Juan Sanchez, founder and president of Southwest Key Programs, said the kids at the shelter could call their family. As part of its admissions process, Southwest Key Programs is looking into how to contact family members, Sanchez said. Parents detained in the immigration and customs enforcement services may not have access to the phone or be reachable, he acknowledged, but he said that "the majority of separated children here have access to the phone." 39, other families that they can call ".

The Casa Padre shelter opened last year. Southwest Key Programs, which has been operating shelters for immigrant children since 1997, operates 26 other shelters in Texas, Arizona and California. Aside from undocumented children, the non-profit organization also occupies other children and has received more than $ 807 million in federal grants over the last three fiscal years for the children. services for immigrant children.