52,000 immigrant children caught on border, more coming to El Paso
52,000 immigrant children caught on border, more coming to El Paso
By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times POSTED: 06/28/2014 11:13:57 AM MDT
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Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility, Wednesday, June 18, 2014, in Brownsville,Texas. CPB provided media tours Wednesday of two locations in Brownsville and Nogales, Ariz., that have been central to processing the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country illegally since Oct. 1. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Pool)
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Undocumented immigrants caught in South Texas will to continue to be flown to El Paso, which has had a jump in the number of unaccompanied children caught by the U.S. Border Patrol, according to new statistics.
More than 52,000 unaccompanied children have been detained by the U.S. Border Patrol on the Mexican border since October, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures released Friday. The number of child immigrants have increased in almost all parts of the border, including an increase of 33 percent in El Paso.
The biggest problem spot is the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas where 37,621 children have been detained, according to CBP figures.
By comparison, 13,532 children were detained during the same period last fiscal year.
CBP officials said Friday that it will transfer adults and children from the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas to El Paso, Laredo, San Diego and El Centro, Calif., the Associated Press reported. The announcement was less than a week after CBP had canceled flights — each scheduled with 140 passengers — to California.
A Border Patrol spokeswoman said Friday that a flight of immigrant detainees from South Texas was sent to El Paso every day this week. The flights are determined day-by-day and the total number of immigrants sent to El Paso was not immediately available, she said.
The first two flights that arrived in El Paso on June 7 carried 270 passengers.
The immigrants sent to El Paso are processed and released and receive help from local charities for a bus or plane ticket to their destination in other parts of the United States where they will await deportation hearings.
Immigrants are being flown to El Paso and other cities because the Border Patrol in South Texas is facing a flood of immigrants, mostly women and children from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
U.S. authorities and immigrant-rights advocates have said the immigrants are fleeing extreme poverty, gangs and violence in their native countries and are also motivated by false rumors that they will receive permission to stay in the United States.
The CBP statistics released Friday show that the number of unaccompanied immigrant children increased in all Border Patrol sectors on the Mexican border with the exception of Tucson, which had a 4 percent decrease.
In El Paso, there have been 742 children detained this year compared with 559 a year ago, according to CBP numbers. The numbers are for Oct. 1 to June 15 of the current fiscal 2014 compared with the same period in fiscal 2013.
The surge in immigrant children has strained CBP resources.
Some of the children are being housed at shelters at military bases, such as Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
A temporary shelter for women with children has been set up at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, N.M. The shelter can house a maximum of 672 immigrants but will likely average 600 people, U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials told the Carlsbad Current-Argus.
In Juárez, five suspected undocumented immigrants from Honduras, including three children, were arrested by Mexican immigration officers during a early Friday morning sweep of downtown hotels, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said. The hotels were inspected by immigration officers, Juárez police and members of a Chihuahua state unit that investigates crimes against women.
An 11-year-old girl, her 12-year-old brother and their 17-year-old cousin were traveling with a 34-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, who are their neighbors, Chihuahua officials said.
The group, which now face deportation from Mexico, were headed to the United States, officials said.
Daniel Borunda may be reached at 546-6102.
Undocumented children
Number of unaccompanied immigrant children apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol on the Mexican border.
Source: U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Figures for Oct. 1 to June 15 in fiscal 2014 and fiscal 2013.
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