Texas
Five migrant girls found abandoned in sweltering heat by Texas farmer
TEXAS – Five young migrant girls — one so young she was crawling naked through the brush — were found by a Texas farmer on his ranch near the Rio Grande River as temperatures soared past 100 degrees, according to a report on Tuesday.
The girls, all under the age of 7, were discovered by the farmer on his land in Quemado hungry and crying, the youngest too small to walk.
US Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) tweeted out a photo of the girls Sunday night and talked with the farmer.
“Take a good hard look at the #BidenBorderCrisis… @POTUS enough is enough let’s work together [to] solve this crisis,” Gonzalez said in the post.
Three of the girls — all ranging in age from 7 years to 11 months — are believed to be from Honduras and the other two from Guatemala.
The farmer, identified as Jimmy Hobbs, said he called the Border Patrol and got the children into the shade and gave them food and water.
“I don’t think they would have made it if I hadn’t found them,” he told Gonzalez, “because it got up to 103 yesterday.”
Hobbs, who said he was born there and farmed onions, said he’s “never” seen the situation at the border so bad.
“My thoughts are that it needs to stop right now. There are going to be thousands. This is just five miles of the Rio Grande,” Hobbs’ wife told Gonzalez as they stood on the banks of the Rio Grande.
“That’s a huge border. This is happening all up and down it. It can’t go on. It’s gonna be too hot. There’ll be a lot of deaths, a lot of suffering,” she said.
Customs and Border Protection said the girls will be placed in custody of the Department of Health and Human Services after being processed.
They did not require medical attention.
“It is heartbreaking to find such small children fending for themselves in the middle of nowhere,” Chief Border Patrol Agent Austin Skero II.
“Unfortunately this happens far too often now. If not for our community and law enforcement partners, these little girls could have faced the more than 100-degree temperatures with no help.”
President Biden named Vice President Kamala Harris in March to head up the administration’s response to the surge of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States.
While she has yet to travel to the border, she met virtually with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador last week and will travel to Mexico and Guatemala on June 7 and 9.
“Together, we must fight violence, we must fight corruption and impunity. It is in our countries’ mutual interest to provide immediate relief to the Northern Triangle and to address the root causes of migration,” Harris told the Mexican leader.
“You and I have discussed it before and understanding a belief — most people don’t want to leave home and when they do, it is often because they are fleeing some harm or they are forced to leave because there are no opportunity.”
The Biden administration’s undoing of former President Donald Trump’s border policies has prompted a flood of Central American and Mexican illegal migrants at the US border, including thousands of unescorted children.
Central Americans looking for refuge from the Northern Triangle countries — Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — have taken these policy moves, as well as the overwhelmingly more welcoming tone from Democrats, as a sign that Biden is inviting them to cross the border.