The 10-year-old boy crossed the Rio Grande with hundreds of other migrants last week. But he was alone.
This is how Christopher Garcia says he managed to travel over the course of three months, from his home in one of the most dangerous cities in the world, San Pedro Sula, Honduras, to the US border, without an adult. : mingling with groups of older children and families.
A lean, athletic boy with curly brown hair and a mischievous smile, Christopher left at an age when the street gangs that dominate his neighborhood had begun recruiting him. His father, who worked in a garment factory, had tried to immigrate to the United States himself in the past, but was deported the same day he crossed the border.
This year, the family's luck took a turn for the worse after hurricanes damaged their home and toppled trees on its roof.
AdvertisementChristopher then said he left his parents and two younger sisters behind and headed to join his aunt, a US citizen, in the mountains of western North Carolina. He carried her phone number with him, written on the back of her Honduran birth certificate. As he headed toward Texas, he managed to memorize the phone number, just in case the document was lost or stolen.
Last week, a Mexican smuggler, on the south side of the Rio Grande, took Christopher to an abandoned house, where he slept on the floor with other migrants for three days. He waited, shivering, without shelter, food, or water supply. The smuggler returned late Wednesday and led the group of 700 migrants to the river, where he said he heard gunshots but did not see who was doing it. They crossed on rafts into the Rio Grande Valley of Texas around midnight.
Christopher Garcia, a 10-year-old boy traveling alone to the United States from Honduras
Once on the American side, in rural La Joya, Christopher wandered with the group in the dark through thick mesquite brush that bordered the river, splitting into smaller factions until they found the Old Military Road. The cracked, jungle road of the Rio Grande Valley that is frequented by the US Customs and Border Protection. Border Patrol agents saw Christopher's group of 27 youth and seven adults early Thursday. The officers sat them down on the dry grass and called for a bus to take them to a temporary holding area, which was already crowded. But all the trucks were busy transporting other migrants.
“We are already full,” said one of the agents as he waited with the youths on the side of the road.
AnnouncementDue to an uptick in migration at the US border in recent weeks, buses have taken nearly 12 hours to arrive. Christopher was among more than 171,000 migrants apprehended at the southern border last month, the highest monthly total since 2006, according to preliminary Customs and Border Protection data verified by the Times.
Of those migrants, more than 18,800 were youth like Christopher who arrived without adults, much more than the previous monthly record of 11,861, in May 2019. About a third of them, last month, were apprehended in the Valley of the Rio Grande.
It would be days before Christopher spoke to relatives in the United States.
The same day he arrived in the United States, President Biden said his administration was trying to quickly release migrant children to shelters and, ultimately, to their families.
“We are rebuilding capacity that should have been maintained and built on the foundation that [President] Trump dismantled,” Biden said during his first press conference, adding that once a young person reaches the border, family members they are contacted within 24 hours and investigated.
But families, like Christopher's in the United States, said they face delays trying to find and recover migrant youth being held by the federal government.
Border Patrol had 5,381 migrant youth in custody and 13,359 more were in federal shelters as of Thursday, according to the most recently released numbers. The surge in minors has overwhelmed Border Patrol, which is facing a shortage of buses, holding areas and shelter beds.
On March 25, officers waited with Christopher's group in the afternoon heat with no food, little shade, and water. Some of the girls were pregnant. One passed out and officers had to revive her.
Christopher had dreamed of going to the movies in America, maybe even Disneyland. Now he too was exhausted.
“I'm so hungry,” he repeated, brushing off his dusty clothes. "I want food, take a bath, change my pants."
AdvertisementHe remembered how his parents had given him instructions on how to survive.
At mid-morning, a Frito-Lay truck pulled up near the group, and the driver handed officers some bags of Cracker Jack. They distributed the snacks to the youth, who asked for water. An officer directed them to line up behind a cooler in his SUV and handed out paper cups, one for each child.
“Where are the little kids?” the officer asked.
Christopher went to the front of the line, along with two 9-year-old Honduran boys, a girl named Litzy and a boy named Snyder.
Christopher wore a red and blue shirt with a skier and the slogan "Time 2 Shred." At home, he played soccer and basketball. Now he had cramps in his right leg. He made a face, rubbing it over the top of his sneakers, which he wore without socks. Nearby, a 16-year-old boy was limping because he was injured while crossing the river.
“I suffer,” Christopher said. "But just a little".
Another boy had a cell phone with video games that the boys took turns playing on. Some spoke of his relatives in Kansas, Florida, Tennessee and Texas.
Around 1:30 p.m., a white government bus finally arrived, then half a dozen more. Christopher got to his feet and fidgeted as the officers called the youths by name and they boarded. He was one of the last to be called up. The single adult migrants boarded a separate van and would likely be sent back to Mexico.
AnnouncementChristopher and the rest of the youth, as well as some migrant families, were taken to a Border Patrol holding area near Donna, Texas, where conditions are appalling. Overcrowded, the tent designed for 250 people already housed some 4,000, including 3,300 young people who had arrived without adults. Some had already spent weeks there, waiting to be released to their families.
On Tuesday, some reporters were allowed to spend less than two hours inside the facility, where footage showed Christopher was still being held five days after crossing the border. Video filmed during the visit showed the young migrant walking past a food line, grabbing a Capri Sun drink, and entering a crowded “pod” of housing, still wearing the same red and blue shirt he arrived in.
By law, Border Patrol is supposed to transfer youth within 72 hours to Health and Human Services (HSS) shelters with beds, medical staff, teachers, and recreational activities. But due to the increase in migrants, more than 2,000 boys had been held at the Donna facility for more than 72 hours as of Tuesday; Thirty-nine had been there for more than 15 days, and some for as long as 20 days, said Óscar Escamilla, acting director of the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector.
The facility costs $16 million a month to operate, excluding medical services and caregiver contracts, it said. Medical staff check the youth for lice, but none are tested for COVID-19 unless they are showing symptoms, Escamilla said.
Kids are given barcoded wristbands that show medical conditions and when they last showered. Those 14 and older have their photos and fingerprints taken, and all receive notices to appear in immigration court, the acting director said.
The youth were housed in 400-square-foot “pods” designed to house 32 people during the pandemic, but packed by hundreds, one of them even with 676 minors. They could be seen sleeping under silver Mylar blankets and on padding scattered on the floor. Escamilla reported that about 14% of youth test positive for COVID when they leave, and he expects some to become infected in crowded areas.
Border Patrol set up a playpen outside the pods, where an 11-year-old boy watched over his 3-year-old sister and a 17-year-old girl, who had migrated without an adult, cared for her newborn. “I can't put these little kids in those pods because they're going to get hurt,” Escamilla said.
Outside, construction crews hummed as workers expanded the facility, roughly doubling in size with new tents to be overseen by Health and Human Services.
Border Patrol agents are supposed to ask young people if they have a contact in the United States and allow the child to speak with them, Escamilla said; the press tour showed the young people in spaces labeled as “phone rooms”. But Christopher's relatives had not yet spoken to him as of Tuesday, nor had relatives of some of the other children detained with him.
“A Border Patrol facility is no place for a child,” Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro N. Mayorkas said in a statement this week. “We have been working around the clock, in coordination with HHS, to quickly get unaccompanied minors out of these overcrowded Border Patrol stations.”
On Wednesday, Mayorkas held a conference call with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and other officials to discuss the situation at the border, assuring members of Congress that the administration was making progress. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who was on the call and had visited Donna's facility Tuesday, disagreed.
“They said, ‘We are going to move the children as soon as possible. I didn't see that,” Cuellar remarked in a later interview, noting that he saw filing cabinets at Donna's facility filled with thousands of case documents from young migrants awaiting release to reach their families.
Norma, 37, who works in construction
Border Patrol agents told Cuéllar that of those detained at the Donna facility, 1,800 were boys and 1,500 were girls. Approximately 800 were under 13 years of age. Three dozen youths had been detained for more than two weeks. Four teenage boys and three girls of the same age range had been detained for more than 19 days, he said, in part because of a shortage of beds in federal shelters. On Thursday, Border Patrol would encounter 496 recently arrived migrant youth, but federal spaces would discharge only 288.
“They're not moving fast enough,” Cuéllar said of the youth at federal facilities.
She said some teenage girls detained for more than 20 days in Donna have been sent to a girls' shelter that opened last week at the San Diego Convention Center. Federal officials have opened a slew of new shelters, mainly for teenage children, who typically migrate in large numbers.
“I asked Border Patrol, 'Why are you taking the boys instead of the girls?'” Cuéllar said, especially when some girls have waited weeks to be released. "I feel bad for them, particularly the young moms."
It takes at least a month for federal social workers to investigate the family and others authorized to claim migrant children, Cuellar said, and if they can't find any, the process can take up to four months.
Advertisement“The problem gets worse with every child they put in detention,” said Dr. Amy Cohen, whose Los Angeles-based nonprofit Every Last One works to reunite migrant children with their parents. families, including those arriving at the border unaccompanied by adults. “What you see is more and more delays, and it's only going to get worse. We are storing them."
The mother of Snyder, a 9-year-old migrant from Honduras who crossed the river with Christopher, said Border Patrol called her in Florida on Sunday to say they had him, but federal officials have not yet contacted her.
The mother, Norma, 37, who works in construction, asked to be identified only by her first name because she lives in the United States illegally, which does not prevent her from claiming her son. She had a relative bring Snyder to the border to cross after his school closed due to the pandemic, the country's economy was devastated by hurricanes and when she feared he would be pressured to join a gang.
“When someone decides to take the risk for a better life for our children and send them alone, it is because there is no other way,” he explained.
A Guatemalan youth who arrived in the same group as Christopher, 16-year-old Frank Echeverría, was also waiting Thursday to join family in Arkansas.
“I don't know why it's taking so long. I wish he could call us,” stepmother Lisa Castillo, a US citizen, said by phone. “What can we do to get him released faster? We are willing to do anything. Your family is waiting for you. We are really worried about him and we want to have him home with us."
Christopher's aunt in North Carolina has been trying to claim him since Border Patrol contacted her on March 25.
“I'm worried about how I can get him out of there,” said Digna Brittain, 60, a housekeeper in Morganton, North Carolina. “They told me that an officer was going to call me and to have my phone in my hand. I will gladly buy you a ticket to come here.”
She said Christopher's mother had called to alert her after he left and explained that he was coming to escape the gangs.
Advertisement“That's why parents send their children here, instead of risking their lives on the streets. They reach a certain age and are recruited into gangs,” Brittain said. "Parents have to take a chance because they think less will happen to them in America."
25 years have passed since Brittain left Honduras. The last time she saw Christopher, she said, was when she returned to visit her mother a few years ago. Now a US citizen, she plans to adopt him.
“I don't want her to go to a shelter because she has family here, me and many cousins,” her aunt said.
On Wednesday, after she called a federal hotline, she was told that Christopher was still in Texas and someone would call her in a couple of days to explain how they would release him. The officials then put the child on the phone, and she sobbed with relief.
“He told me he's fine, he's just bored being there,” Brittain commented afterwards. "For him, eating and feeling safe is a lot."
“My husband wants us to go look for him, but I know there is a process we have to follow,” she explained.
As of Thursday, a week after crossing the border, Christopher remained in federal custody.
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