TX-Deputies looking for smuggler,Salvadoran children abandon

Deputies looking for smuggler after Salvadoran children abandoned in field

October 05, 2009 6:22 PM
Jared Taylor

EDINBURG — Sheriff’s deputies are working to identify a man who abandoned two Salvadoran children in a field Saturday afternoon.

The abandonment occurred after the children’s mother turned over her kids — a 1-year-old boy and a 2-year-old girl — to the man, who promised to smuggle the family to Houston to meet with family, said Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño.

The Salvadoran family arrived illegally in the Rio Grande Valley about a week ago, Treviño said. Federal authorities arrested the children’s father after he wandered away from the group shortly after they crossed into the country.

But his wife and children safely made it to a stash house, where they waited for a smuggler to take them farther north, the sheriff said.

Apparently impatient after waiting at the stash house for several days, the woman went to a convenience store and called a smuggler Saturday afternoon.

The man told her he would pick up her children and then return in about an hour to load her into his vehicle as well.

The woman turned her kids over to the smuggler. Several hours went by without hearing from him and she became worried, so she found a passerby to give her a ride to the sheriff’s office.

Coincidentally, deputies had already located the children in a field south of the intersection of Monte Cristo and Cesar Chavez roads near Edinburg, the sheriff said. Doctors checked the children and found no signs of abuse.

“We’ve got the mother and the children in a safe place,â€