Woman, 30, is caught smuggling three-year-old Honduran girl into the U.S. on a raft 'after being handed the child by human traffickers in Mexico'
A three-year-old girl from Honduras was found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Texas when an undocumented immigrant from Venezuelan was detained for unlawfully entering the United States.
CBP said officers from Fort Brown Station were conducting a surveillance patrol in Brownsville on Thursday when they received a report of human smuggling attempt reaching the riverbank of the Rio Grande on a raft.
The 30-year-old woman told the CBP agents that the Honduran child was not hers and that the girl had been handed to her by human traffickers in Mexico and told to 'travel north' with her.
While conducting surveillance of the United States-Mexico border in Texas, CBP agents from the Fort Brown Station found a Venezuelan woman with a three-year-old girl from Hondurans on the U.S. riverbanks of the Rio Grande after crossing on a raft. The 30-year-old woman told the agents the human traffickers in Mexico handed her the child and told her to go 'north.' The CBP agents found a Minnie Mouse t-shirt that included the name of a person and phone number, too. The child is now in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement
During the investigation, the U.S. Border Patrol officers found the girl's birth certificate and a Minnie Mouse t-shirt that contained the name of a person and phone number written on it with a marker.
'The woman added the only reason she complied with the smugglers instructions was she felt it was in the best interest and safety of the child,' CBP said in a statement.
A spokesperson for CBP told DailyMail.com on Monday that the child was placed in custody of Office of Refugee Resettlement. The spokesperson couldn't comment on the Venezuelan woman's immigration status.
CBP data released Wednesday showed a 53% decrease in encounters with undocumented immigrants in the interior of the United States and at the port of entry with Mexico for fiscal year 2020. However, there has been a sharp increase in apprehensions of late
CBP last week reported that apprehensions of undocumented immigrants had dropped by 53% in fiscal 2020, despite a gradual spike over the last five months.
Data posted last Wednesday showed apprehensions on unaccompanied children - children not accompanied by a legal guardian or immediate family member - dropped from 2,974 in March to 712 in April despite the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, CBP saw a rise in detentions of unaccompanied children in May, 966; June, 1,603; July, 2,426; and August, 2,998.
CBP registered the most cases of unaccompanied children apprehended at the border for fiscal year 2020 in September, 3,756, surpassing the 3,308 children who were stopped in November 2019 after unlawfully crossing the Mexico-United States international line without a legal guardian or family member.