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Conversations with thought leaders on immigration and "What It Means to Be an American"

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“Untitled (so much darkness, so much brownness)” By: Felipe Baeza

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In July, agents in the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector came upon an 8-year-old boy, alone, by a river road. Agents were only able to learn his name and his age as they took him in for processing - he spoke only a regional dialect they did not understand.

"We have gotten 4-year-olds, 3-year-olds that are abandoned by the smugglers and everybody else and kind of left to fend for themselves," said Jorge Gonzalez, the patrol agent in charge of the Border Patrol's Brownsville Station and a 19-year veteran of the agency.

One of the agencies that places children in foster homes said that a quarter of its caseload now consists of children 5 years old and younger.

Mr. Gonzalez and other officials said these unaccompanied children traveling without parents or relatives are sometimes even as young as infants and toddlers. In recent weeks, several infant boys and girls were being held at the Border Patrol's Centralized Processing Center in McAllen, Tex. - all of them had crossed the border without their families, were apprehended as part of larger migrant groups and were expected to join relatives already living in the United States.

"We've seen that plenty of times," Mr. Gonzalez said. "It's a child that doesn't belong to really, truly, anybody within the group, and they're to get turned over to their parents that have already made their way into the United States."

In one case, a 2-year-old girl was found with a group of migrants in November just north of the border near Campo, Calif. She was not related to anyone in the group, and was strapped to the chest of a 17-year-old boy in a makeshift cloth baby carrier.

The girl had been traveling with her mother, but the mother became tired and asked if one of the other migrants could carry her daughter. The 17-year-old boy agreed. But the group of migrants later separated, and the boy was unable to locate the girl's mother. When he crossed into the United States with the girl still strapped to his chest, he had still not located the mother, according to the Border Patrol. After he and the girl were apprehended, the girl was placed in custody as officials worked on reuniting her with her mother.

In the case of the 3-year-old boy found on Tuesday in the cornfield, federal officials were working on reuniting the boy with his family. Pictures released on Twitter by the Border Patrol's parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, show the boy sitting at a desk in a Border Patrol office, watching "Paw Patrol" on an official's computer.

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3-Year-Old Found Alone at Border Is One of Many 'Heartbreaking' Migrant Cases

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In July, agents in the Border Patrol's Rio Grande Valley sector came upon an 8-year-old boy, alone, by a river road. Agents were only able to learn his name and his age as they took him in for processing - he spoke only a regional dialect they did not understand.

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Bent to the Earth by Blas Manuel De Luna | Poetry Foundation