Border Patrol Sector Chief: Young Girls in Viral Smuggling Video Are Doing Fine After US Intervention

Two small girls dropped over the border wall on Tuesday are recovering, according to a Border Patrol official. El Paso Border Patrol Sector Chief Gloria Chavez said smugglers dropped the two sisters, aged three and…

IJR SyndicatedApr 3, 20214 min read

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“So I helped them peel a banana and open a juice box and just talked to them. You know, children are just so resilient and I’m so grateful that they’re not severely injured or broken limbs or anything like that,” she said.

Chavez said the story could easily have had a tragic ending.

She said that the girls were left “in the middle of the New Mexico desert … miles from the nearest residence” and were only noticed due to the “vigilance of our agents using mobile technology.”

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Calling the smugglers who brought the children north “ruthless,” she said this was a new tactic to her.

“I’ve been doing this for over twenty-five years now and we know exactly the tactics of these people,” she said. “For them, it’s just a profit … So when we see an image like that, that raises my alert and my worry that they may continue to try these tactics further out in the desert area like Lordsburg, New Mexico Fort Hancock, Texas, where it’s not urban, it’s very remote, it’s very rural and the logistics and the challenges that exist for Border Patrol agents to get to those locations are quite high.

“So I worry when I see images like this and the tactics that smugglers are using really hurting these children,” she said.

Chavez said nothing like this happens by chance.

“This is a coordinated effort all the way up to our border, right up to the smugglers operating in that area and then paying — either the families pay a fee or relatives pay a fee,” she said.

“If you saw in that video, there is a third item that is thrown over that barrier, and that was a bag. In that bag, there was a phone, there was a phone number and their passports.”

“And we were able through the intelligence and the agents working this case already, they were able to make contact with the mother who resides in New York. So that connection has been made, and we continue with the investigation because … we want to get these guys so that they don’t do this to another unaccompanied minor on that border,” she said.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.