EAGLE PASS, Texas — Within the last week, 158 unaccompanied migrant children have been sent across the Rio Grande into the small town of Eagle Pass. The children, mostly between the ages of five to 17, hail from several Central and South American countries, according to a source within Customs and Border Protection.
Texas Department of Public Safety Highway Patrol troopers interdicted 57 unaccompanied migrant children in a single group of more than two hundred migrants fording the river on Wednesday.
According to the source within CBP, the influx of unaccompanied children into the area in such a short time frame is an emerging trend not seen since late 2023.
“After the Mexican government stopped migrants hopping on the Bestia train in December, our numbers quickly slowed in Eagle Pass. Now, it seems the dam is starting to break,” the source told Breitbart Texas.
The migrant children often carry a slip of paper with the telephone number of a relative in the United States, as evidenced in a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Texas DPS Highway Patrol spokesperson Lt. Chris Olivarez. His post highlighted Wednesday’s encounter with the largest group of migrant children this month.
In other cases, according to the CBP source, unaccompanied migrant children may have contact information for relatives written on an arm or piece of clothing.
Unless the child is from Mexico, the unaccompanied children are quickly transferred to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), where workers will attempt to find relatives of sponsors to assume custody of the children. According to ORR, as of October 4, more than 6,000 unaccompanied children were being detained as staff members worked to locate sponsors within the United States.
The cost to detain unaccompanied migrant children in one of the 289 facilities and programs in 29 states funded by ORR is between $250 and $750 per child per day, depending on the type of facility the migrant child is sent to.
The estimated cost of detaining migrant children is more than $1 billion annually. According to ORR, the average detention duration is less than 60 days. The number of unaccompanied migrant children crossing the southwest border has skyrocketed under the Biden-Harris administration. According to ORR, in fiscal year 2020, less than 16,000 unaccompanied migrant children needed placement services by the agency. That number grew to more than 120,000 in the first year of the Biden-Harris administration.
Earlier this month, Texas DPS troopers arrested 27 Special Interest Aliens within a large migrant group in Eagle Pass. (Texas Department of Public Safety)
The latest migrant surge into Eagle Pass is also concerning for law enforcement authorities for another reason. As reported by Breitbart Texas, authorities are also experiencing a rise in the number of Special Interest Alien crossings. Since Friday, 5 Iranian citizens, 19 nationals of Egypt, 4 Afghan nationals, and 5 Turkish citizens have been arrested crossing the Rio Grande into the small Texas border town. On Wednesday, according to TX DPS spokesperson Olivarez, several Special Interest Aliens from Mali were encountered within a group of more than 200 crossing the Rio Grande at Eagle Pass.
According to CBP, nearly 250,000 migrant apprehensions have occurred in the Del Rio Sector of the Border Patrol. According to the source, almost 80 percent of all apprehensions within the sector occur within the city of Eagle Pass.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
