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By Billal Rahman
Immigration Reporter
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More than 100 unaccompanied children have been found at the southern border since November 24, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), including a 4-year-old girl.
Amid the ongoing humanitarian crisis at the border, dozens of unaccompanied children have been found, highlighting the harrowing impact of the situation on vulnerable migrants.
Lieutenant Chris Olivarez, a spokesperson for the DPS-South Texas, told NewsNation Prime on December 1: "I want the American people to see the impacts of this current border situation that we've been in for the last three plus years, and how it impacts unaccompanied children [that] are coming across that border."
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The children they encountered ranged from 4 years old to 17, according to Olivarez.
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Authorities discovered a 10-year-old boy who crossed the border on Thanksgiving Day.
Responding to the report, Amy Fischer, Director of Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA told Newsweek: "Because of our broken border policies, many parents make the impossible decision to send their children to the U.S. for safety because they know they will face removal if they enter as a family unit.
"It is because of broken border and immigration policies that separate families, make it nearly impossible for families to reunite in the U.S., and block families from exercising their human right to seek safety together."
Republican Representative Mark Green, chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security told Newsweek: "Cartel smugglers have subjected hundreds of thousands of vulnerable migrant children to an immense amount of danger and the Biden-Harris administration has only supercharged their operations through its open-border policies. The suffering these children have endured is utterly heartbreaking.
"The Biden-Harris administration has failed to protect these children from trafficking, abuse, and other unimaginable crimes after releasing them into the interior."
"On day one, President Trump and his border security team will begin a historic effort to address this travesty. They will secure our border, deter human smuggling and trafficking operations, ramp up interior enforcement, and end the perverse incentives for illegal immigration that have endangered the most vulnerable among us."
The report comes after a 4-year-old migrant girl who traveled alone from El Salvador to the United States was found by authorities on November 24.
The girl, carrying only a piece of paper with a phone number and a name, told a DPS trooper that her parents were already in the country.
The child initially told DPS that she was 2 years old; however, the girl's mother told NewsNation that she was 4.
The mother of the four-year-old girl who traveled alone from El Salvador to the United States told NewNation she paid a smuggler.
Patty, the girl's mother, is currently in the U.S. and revealed that she left her child with criminal smugglers hoping this would lead to their reunion.
"I found a coyote [smuggler], and I paid for them to bring her to me," Patty told NewsNation.
"She came alone. It was just the coyote. The last time I talked to my daughter was Saturday, and I haven't heard anything since they told me the coyote had already handed her over to another coyote, but I don't know anything else about her."
According to NewsNation, the mother said that her daughter is still in U.S. immigration custody, and it's unclear when or if she will be released to her in South Carolina.
Olivarez said it's becoming "more common" for Texas troopers to find unaccompanied children.
"It really shows the inner workings of how these criminals are operating, also how some of these family members, if they are family members in fact, how they even allow their child to make this long, precarious journey to United States at the hands of criminals," he added.
"There is no protocols in place to protect unaccompanied children," he said.
According to the DPS, more than 900 children have been rescued from abandonment and human smuggling as part of the state's ongoing Operation Lone Star.
In 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star, a policy worth $11 billion aimed at combining the efforts of the DPS and the Texas National Guard to combat the smuggling of people and drugs into the state.
Update 12/02/24 1:12 p.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Amy Fischer.
Update 12/03/24 8:03 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Mark Green.
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