“It’s easy to get lost here,” said Chris Cabrera, vice president of the National Border Patrol Board, as he drove through a border wall gate near McAllen, Texas.
It’s at 11pm when our Fox crew starts the ride. Even at this hour the air is hot and humid. The dirt roads are uneven, surrounded by dense brushes and trees.
Within minutes, our headlights illuminate several people.
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The family keeps their head together, and avoids eye contact. The father looks exhausted.
“Here is a group of migrants. There seems to be a bit of an emergency, ‘Cabrera reported on his radio as he lowered his truck to a halt.
It was a larger group than we thought. Families with children are slowly emerging from the darkness. About ten others walk out of bushes or climb over fences and are on their way to us. They seem to be relieved, we mean no harm to them.
Two women smile and bend down to pray.
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“Is the United States this way?” asked a 17-year-old boy from Honduras and pointed the way. He does not realize he is already across the border.
He has been traveling by train, bus and on foot for one month. His mother lives in North Carolina, he says.
“I just want to see my mother,” he says, wiping away the tears.
They are all migrants, but they are also strangers who have banded together for security. Among them is a girl found alone along the road. She appears about 9 years old. Her family is in Michigan.
The first man spotted, the father, grabbed my elbow. He is sweating and coughing.
Cabrera takes its temperature and instructs the group to continue in the direction of the Customs and Border Protection Processing Center (CBP). The man’s oxygen levels are dangerously low, requiring immediate medical attention. Cabrera tells him to climb into the bed of the truck.
“I’ll be back for you right away,” he tells our group.
Minutes pass in darkness as we wait for the truck to return. Later, as the ride resumes, we drive past more migrants – one group after another.
Our final destination is the Rio Grande, the real border between America and Mexico. At the end of the road we connect with the rest of the tour.
Dozens of vehicles lead the dirt road with members of Congress from across the country. The delegation is led by Steve Scalise, a Republican House minority whip.
A Republican delegation, including U.S. House Minority Whip, Steve Scalise, R-La., Talks to state troops before touring a section of the U.S.-Mexico border in Mission, Texas, on April 9, 2021. (Reuters)
“Keep your feet moving because of the red ants and other bugs,” someone warns representatives walking out of trucks and SUVs.
Flashlights illuminate pants scattered in the dirt. According to migrants, migrants take off their wet clothes after swimming or capsizing in the river.
“Hundreds of people are crossing here,” a border agent explained, pointing to a small cove. He gives me glasses for a night vision to see across the Rio Grande. The river is partly just the length of a soccer field.
In March alone, more than 172,000 migrants crossed the border, according to CBP. About 19,000 of them were unaccompanied children.
Cabrera has been working at the border for 20 years. It’s the busiest he’s ever seen, he says.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), only 11% of migrants are unaccompanied minors. However, that number still translates to more than 20,000 children in U.S. facilities.
“We found a young boy who died of heat exhaustion. He was 8 years old,” Cabrera said. “The worst thing we could ever do is to become numb to something like that because it is not normal. But it is becoming all too common for us now to see children in such situations.”
President Biden has promised to take a more humanitarian approach to the border than the previous government. Recent estimates suggest that caring for these children is about $ 60 million a week.
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According to HHS, 80% of unaccompanied minor cases still have one family member in the US. And in 40% of cases, the member is a parent or guardian.
Despite the completion of their perilous journey, the journey for these migrants is far from over.
Children and families will be placed in the plant sites, while CBP will bring single adults back across the border. More than 1 million people are expected to cross the border this year alone. Although their destinations and migration stories may differ, they remain unwavering in their hopes for a fresh start in the US.