Two small girls dropped over the border wall on Tuesday are recovering, according to a Border Patrol official.
El Paso Border Patrol Sector Chief Gloria Chavez said smugglers dropped the two sisters, aged three and five, in what to her is an escalation of the harsh tactics already used by smugglers in their inhumane business. A massive spike in unaccompanied children has taken place this spring year as part of an unprecedented surge in illegal immigration.
“I was really horrified and appalled and worried when I first saw the images come through from my staff,” Chavez told Neil Cavuto on “Your World,” according to Fox News.
“When I saw that first child dropped to the ground and then not see her move for a few seconds, I honestly thought this child just probably hit her head and is unconscious. And then I see the second child and immediately DHS, obviously, within a few minutes responded to that area to rescue them,” she said.
Chavez described the children as “so resilient” and said they were “doing fine” as they recovered from a 14-foot fall.
Photos show girls who were dropped over fence having snacks with border agent https://t.co/3ERYtKlMlc pic.twitter.com/ISfAV1JiZs
— New York Post (@nypost) April 2, 2021
“When I visited with these little girls, they were so loving and so talkative, some of them were asking the names of all the agents that were there around them, and they even said they were a little hungry,” Chavez said.
“So I helped them peel a banana and open a juice box and just talked to them. You know, children are just so resilient and I’m so grateful that they’re not severely injured or [have] broken limbs or anything like that,” she said.
Chavez said the story could easily have had a tragic ending.
She said that the girls were left “in the middle of the New Mexico desert … miles from the nearest residence” and were only noticed due to the “vigilance of our agents using mobile [surveillance] technology.”
Smugglers, under cover of night, scaled a 14 ft. border barrier and cruelly dropped 2 young children in the middle of the New Mexico desert. The girls, ages 3 & 5, were left miles from the nearest residence. Thank you STN Agents for rescuing these children! @CBP @CBPWestTexas pic.twitter.com/U91y2g8Lk1
— Gloria I. Chavez (@USBPChiefEPT) March 31, 2021
Calling the smugglers who brought the children north “ruthless,” she said this was a new tactic to her.
“I’ve been doing this for over twenty-five years now and we know exactly the tactics of these people,” she said. “For them, it’s just a profit … So when we see an image like that, that raises my alert and my worry that they may continue to try these tactics further out in the desert area like [near] Lordsburg, New Mexico [or] Fort Hancock, Texas, where it’s not urban, it’s very remote, it’s very rural and the logistics and the challenges that exist for Border Patrol agents to get to those locations are quite high.
“So I worry when I see images like this and the tactics that smugglers are using [are] really hurting these children,” she said.
Chavez said nothing like this happens by chance.
“This is a coordinated effort all the way up to our border, right up to the smugglers operating in that area and then paying — either the families pay a fee or relatives pay a fee,” she said.
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“If you saw in that video, there is a third item that is thrown over that barrier, and that was a bag. In that bag, there was a phone, there was a phone number and their passports.”
“And we were able through the intelligence and the agents working this case already, they were able to make contact with the mother who resides in New York. So that connection has been made, and we continue with the investigation because … we want to get these guys so that they don’t do this to another unaccompanied minor on that border,” she said.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.