They are in Texas, less than a mile north of the U.S.-Mexico border, trying to find their way.
CNN followed the late hours of Wednesday night through a team of deputy constables in Texas and watched their meeting with the teens.
That moment when migrants and authorities crossed paths – and other details we learned on the journey to the desert – gave us a window into a fast-moving situation that sparked heated political debate in different corners of the country, but rarely seen near most Americans.
The people we met were not worried about any conversations in Washington. But they had a lot to say. Here is what we saw and heard from them.
Some flee hurricanes
When a deputy constable asks where they come from, all seven teenagers answer almost unanimously: Guatemala.
They tell CNN that they met for the first time on their long journey north. Some say smugglers helped them along the way. Others say they had no help.
Many of the teens, who identify to CNN only by their first names to protect their safety, are emotional when they talk about the journey they brought here, and what they left behind.
Kevin, 16, started crying and said he sometimes did not have food or water to drink. He has not seen his father for two years and hopes to contact him again in Pennsylvania.
“I’ve been on this road for a month,” he says, wiping his eyes, “and now I’m here.
All of the teens say they have family members or acquaintances with whom they can reunite in different parts of the United States – Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Florida and Idaho. They say they hope to study here and eventually work.
“There is no work,” he says. “There is no money to study.”
Edgar, 17, has had a similar experience. “The house fell around us,” he says. “Thank God my mother is still alive.”
He makes this journey for her, he says – to help her survive.
A sergeant’s opinion: ‘We’re not the bad guys’
This is a scene like many Reserve Sgt. Deputy Constable Dan Broyles has seen this before. During his 37 years in law enforcement, many of whom have been patrolled on this border of the patrol, Broyles is familiar with what happens when migrants first arrive in the United States.
According to him, the deputy constables’ job is not to determine someone’s fate. When they encounter groups here, they accompany them to meet Border Patrol.
“We’re not the bad guys,” he says. “We just want to make sure they are safe and get the medical attention they need.”
As he drives us along a rugged dirt road that winds along the banks of the Rio Grande, Broyles points to a place where he remembers finding a man’s remains eight years ago.
“He hurt himself. He was abandoned by a group, and he’s dead,” Broyles said, shaking his head. “It’s sad.”
The trek across the border has always been a dangerous journey. But over the last few years, the people who make it have changed. There are many more families and children coming. And for Broyles, it’s hard to see.
As we walk with him near the Rio Grande, Broyles points to cloths on the ground.
“There’s one, two, three,” he says. ‘What does that tell you? They bring babies over. As a father, I do not know if I want to spend my children for it. ‘
The landscape is littered with tips that children and families go through
The diapers are not the only sign that children and families were here. We also see children’s clothes and small masks on the ground.
Documents left behind by some migrants tell part of their story. One piece of paper we spotted in the brush describes a 34-year-old mother from Honduras and her 2-year-old son. According to the document, both tested negative for Covid before leaving their country.
Here are other signs that point to the new realities of the border. A handwritten note was pasted on a tree, in a bag that read ‘Department of Homeland Security’, says ‘ASILO’ in block letters, Spanish for ‘asylum’.
It is a kind of protection that many migrants crossing the border seek. It has become harder to win, but it’s legal to ask for it – and that’s one reason why families and children are looking for authorities after crossing the border and surrendering themselves.
This is where Broyles and other deputy constables come in. It only takes them a few minutes tonight to briefly question each of the teens.
Then they send them along a path and lead them to a processing center for border patrols under a nearby bridge, which comes into focus while floodlights illuminate it.
For the teens we met, this is just another step in an uncertain journey.
CNN’s Rosa Flores and Sara Weisfeldt reported this story in Hidalgo County. CNN’s Catherine E. Shoichet wrote the story in Arlington, Virginia.