Suspected Smuggler Caught on Video Dropping Children over Border Wall
Two children were dropped over an outdated section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall Monday by smugglers trying to get a Guatemalan family into the United States illegally, according to the Border Patrol.
One child was injured in the incident.
The incident was caught by cameras monitoring a part of the Yuma Sector near the San Luis Port of Entry early Monday, the Border Patrol said in a news release.
The cameras showed that a person on the Mexico side of the border barrier was helping adults to get over the top of the 18-foot-high wall. After the family members descended from the wall to the ground, two small children were then dropped family members below.
After dropping the children, the person on the Mexico side of the wall escaped, the Border Patrol said.
In the incident, one of the children suffered a facial injury that was treated by Border Patrol agents, according to the news release.
The family unit of six, which included children aged 2, 7, and 10, was taken into custody by the Border Patrol.
The Border Patrol noted that the section where the incident took place is part of a 27-mile section of the border barrier that will be replaced by new construction as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to beef up border security.
Yuma Sector runs for 126 miles of border through desert regions of California and Arizona, according to the Border Patrol.
Monday’s incident follows a busy Thursday in Yuma Sector in which Border Patrol agents arrested an MS-13 gang member from Mexico.
Agents stopped a vehicle in Arizona and arrested Manuel Lopez-Gomez, 28, an MS-13 member from Mexico, and Andres Abel Garcia, a 49-year-old Mexican who already had a felony conviction for driving under the influence and causing bodily injury and driving under the influence within 10 years of a previous felony DUI, the Border Patrol reported in another release.
Illegal immigrants are trying in vast numbers to cross the border, and not just in Yuma Sector. Over the weekend, agents arrests more than 1,900 individuals in the Rio Grande Valley, according to the Harlingen, Texas-based KGBT.
“The smugglers don’t care for the individuals they’re crossing, all they care about is the money,” Border Patrol Agent Marcelino Medina told the station. “They see these as a commodity, not as people.”
Medina told KGBT that most of those detained are from the Central American nations of El Salvador and Honduras, Guatemala — the name nations that make up the majority of individuals in the migrant caravans that traversed Mexico in recent weeks.
Those who make it to the border often have health problems, he said.
“When these illegal aliens are partaking in this journey, they are not prepared. They are malnourished, they don’t have very much water, very little food. They’re not prepared,” Medina told KGBT.
Some never make it alive.
“Just this weekend, Border Patrol Agents discovered two skeletal remains and then recovered one body in the Rio Grande,” Medina said Monday. “Plus, this morning, Border Patrol Agents found the body of a deceased person in a canal in Mission. The cost of them coming to the United States should never be their life.”
Trump has called for $5 billion in the next federal spending bill to fund construction of his proposed border wall, but is facing resistance from Democrats and liberal groups.
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