Thread: Officials See Rise in Child Smuggling

http://www.mexiconews.com.mx/miami/16356.html

Officials see rise in child smuggling

Officials say families are eager to sneak children across the border during the holiday season.

Wire services
El Universal
December 21, 2005

HARLINGEN, Texas.- An increasing number of smuggling suspects have been arrested trying to bring children from Mexico, an annual problem as illegal immigrants working in the U.S. arrange to have their kids shipped north for holiday reunions.
Officials don´t keep border-wide statistics on such arrests, but David Moreno, immigration chief for Customs and Border Protection for the two bridges from Hidalgo to Reynosa, Mexico, said there were attempts to smuggle nine children there in late November alone.

"That´s natural, to try to be united," he said. "Unfortunately for the children, they´re putting them in danger when they´re being smuggled and that´s what we´re trying to deter. We have real small children, infants, being smuggled in."

Undocumented migrants who miss their children this time of year ask friends or smugglers to bring them across by passing them off as their own children or U.S. citizens, said Rick Pauza, U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman in Laredo.

That was the case in a handful of recent arrests at the Hidalgo bridge in deep South Texas.

In late November, 41-year-old MarÃÂ*a Guadalupe RodrÃÂ*guez was arrested on smuggling charges after telling agents that a 10-month-old baby was hers.

Days before, 45-year-old Lilia Pineda of Richmond, Texas, was arrested after producing false U.S. birth certificates for children ages 8 and 13 who she claimed were grandchildren. The children were Honduran, and the birth certificates belonged to her real grandchild and another child.

Not long after, 31-year-old Victoria Lyn Sánchez of Houston drove across the same bridge with two girls, 11 and 12, that she said were her nieces. They turned out to be unrelated.

When border officials discover the ruse, the children are sent back or, if the family can´t be found, sent to a Mexican children´s shelter.

The smugglers seem to favor high-volume port cities, Pauza said.

"We have seen cases where children are given some kind of cough medicine to either help them sleep or make it so that they can´t answer questions," said Brian Levin, a CBP spokesman in Tucson, Arizona.

Levin said officers usually discover smuggling attempts through standard interviews. In some cases, he said, the parents crossed through the treacherous desert bordering Arizona but were afraid their children wouldn´t make it.

TOUGH DECISIONS

"For parents, it´s trying to decide - do they take the child with them and run the risk of the child being hurt trying to cross through the desert? They also have the risk of the child being hurt by smugglers," Levin said. "There are instances of people who prey on illegal immigrants coming across _ rob them, rape the women, the younger girls."

U.S. and Mexican border agencies work together to return children to relatives there and in other parts of Central and South America as soon as possible, he said.

This year more than 800 children whose relatives couldn´t be located have been sent to the Reynosa shelter, said Sandra Mendoza, Mexican vice consul in McAllen.

"We see this kind of movement all along the year, but of course during the holidays like in summer and Christmas you see a little more of them," Mendoza said.

She said it´s often harder to reach the families of older children and teenagers, as they may be traveling alone from rural places that have no phones.

"But with smaller children, usually the same relative that takes them to the border, sometimes they are waiting nearby to see if they make it," she said.

What is missing in this article is any mention as to whether the children go back.

If they remain here they get a free (to them) K-12 education.
An illegal couple paying $2000 in taxes can have an education for their kids that comes to as much as $10,000 per child.

Then since it is Texas this article focuses on they get a subsidized college education.

in my biulding - right now in Tigard oregon- a mexican woman is trying to get her kids into the united states- she took the van the purple one down there to get them from her x-husband- now- most likely she is illegal- they live here under the umbrella of a green card uncle who has been here 18 years or more----

That little law that says all children in this country, regardless of their immigration status, should receive a "free" k-12 education needs to be stricken, too. It would go a long way in reducing the overcrowded schools.

One step at a time but let's make note of that for future issues to hound congress over.