Minors Traveling Alone are Increasing Percent of Mexican Migrants Traveling to the US Elizabeth Velasco C. - La Jornada
go to original May 6, 2013

Every year the percentage of minors who travel unaccompanied to cross the United States border increases: in 2010, Customs and Border Protection detained 29,624 minors, of whom 59% were traveling alone. In 2009, 40,398 minors were apprehended, of which 43% were unaccompanied.

Most, more than 15 thousand minors, are Mexican (82% and 88% for each year) and they are at risk of becoming victims of sex and labor trafficking, or of suffering physical harm including death from traveling hidden in buses or on trains, or even crossing the border on foot.

In the majority of cases, minors are recruited by criminal gangs, and serve as guides for illegal immigrants or as drug "mules".

There are minors who have attempted to cross the border three or more times, and upon being detained and sent back to Mexico, they once again can become “trapped” by organized crime; some of them remain indebted due to the increased costs of crossing the border, as they have paid from $1,000 to $2,500.

This was raised in the investigative report: Children at the Border: The Screening, Protection, and Repatriation of Unaccompanied Mexican Minors, by Maru Cortázar and Betsy Cavendish, which won a first place award from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF): “A look at childhood and adolescence in Mexico”.

Read the rest at Mexico Voices

Translated by Courtney Webster

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