The Southwest border has seen a surge in children and juveniles trying to cross into the United States without their parents — and officials fear this summer could be the most dangerous for them yet.
Border Patrol apprehensions of unaccompanied juveniles nationwide more than doubled from 16,000 in 2011 to almost 39,000 in fiscal year 2013 — and the government expects the number to hit 60,000 this year. The Tucson Sector saw a 54 percent increase in the same two-year span, from nearly 5,900 to just over 9,000.
Most of unaccompanied minors are from Mexico and Central America. Some are fleeing violence in their home countries, others want to come to work and many are trying to reunite with parents they haven’t seen in years.
The Border Patrol is particularly worried about a spike in the number of kids, both alone and accompanied by parents, from Guatemala — more juveniles from that country were apprehended in the first six months of this fiscal year than in all of last year. Worse yet, they are coming through one of the deadliest parts of the border.
It’s not unusual for Border Patrol agents to find Guatemalan women carrying a baby strapped to their back and pulling along two or three toddlers, a trend that worries the Border Patrol as well as the Guatemalan government.
“We are finding them just walking randomly through the desert by themselves,” said Customs and Border Protection spokesman Andy Adame. “It’s something we need to get a handle of ASAP because this thing can turn tragic any day.”
That’s especially true with summer approaching, said Jeffrey Self, commander of the Arizona Joint Field Command center, which oversees operations of three major Customs and Border Protection branches, including the Border Patrol.
“It is imperative that we get the message to Central America and Mexico that Arizona’s desert is one of the most dangerous places for anyone to attempt illegal entry into the United States,” Self said in a written statement. “The elderly, women and children are the most susceptible people to die as a result of the unscrupulous actions of criminal smuggling organizations.”
So far this fiscal year, the Border Patrol has apprehended nearly 2,500 Guatemalan juveniles. That exceeds the 2,456 detained in all of the previous fiscal year.
To help them survive, the Border Patrol is relocating rescue beacons — 30-foot tall towers with a blue flashing light at night and 20 wallet-size mirrors hanging from it to reflect the sun and attract crossers who need help. It also will deploy its Border Patrol Search, Trauma and Rescue Unit (Borstar), a specialized unit trained in emergency search and rescue, today — about a month earlier than usual.
“We are already in lifesaving mode and it’s not even summer,” said Adame. The deadliest month for border crossers is July.
The Guatemalan Consulate in Phoenix will open an office in Tucson as a response to the increased demand, said Jimena Díaz, the consul in Phoenix. Together with the Border Patrol, the consulate has intensified its campaign warning Guatemalans of the dangers of the desert and to emphasize how vulnerable children are.
No roads, little shade
It’s hard to pinpoint a reason for the surge, Díaz said, since neighboring countries such as El Salvador and Honduras have issues similar to Guatemala’s.“If you ask the migrants, they said it’s an economic reason, because there are no jobs,” she said. “But they don’t give out any more information.”
The consulate and Border Patrol suspect a well-organized mafia is coordinating the crossings and telling migrants not to talk.
The area many of them are crossing is about 20 to 30 miles west of Sasabe and the most remote, deadliest portion of the desert, Adame said.
It is a vast land of leveled valleys with few mountain ranges. There are none of the big, shady mesquite trees seen in Nogales. There are no natural springs. No houses. No roads or nearby towns.
Unaccompanied juveniles have tried to cross into the United States for years. But in previous years, Adame said, they would cross close to Nogales, Douglas or Naco — and never alone.
Most of the Guatemalan children Border Patrol agents are apprehending — both accompanied and unaccompanied — are younger than 13, with many under 5 years old, Adame said.
To raise awareness about the growing problem, the Tucson Samaritans, a local nonprofit founded in 2002 to provide humanitarian aid to border-crossers, will show the film “Which Way Home” and host a panel discussion with local experts.
“Which Way Home,” released in 2009, follows the 1,450-mile journey of a group of children from Central America trying to reach the United States.
“I felt a film should be made to make people aware of the reasons of why people are coming,” said Rebecca Cammisa, who directed the documentary, which is being used in Mexico to educate rural communities and by U.S. government officials and judges.
“The message of the film is not a political film, not to make you be a pro- or anti-anything, but to promote compassion and understanding,” Cammisa said. “To spend 1ƒ hours in someone else’s shoes and see what they go through.”
She started off with the goal of following children who were trying to reunite with their parents. But along the way she learned they had myriad reasons for undertaking a dangerous journey on which they are often extorted, robbed or even killed.
In 2006, Eloy Francisco and his cousin Rosario Hernández, at age 13 and 16, decided to seek a better future across the border and leave their town of Tehuacán, in southern Mexico.
As seen in the film, Eloy’s body was found in the Arizona desert a month after he left home. The medical examiner’s report said he died of exposure on May 27.
Five months after that, Rosario’s parents got a call from the Mexican government saying they had found a body, but because of decomposition they needed to perform a DNA test.
The test confirmed it was Rosario, who most likely died of exposure nearly a week earlier than his cousin and travel companion.
Boarding “the Beast”
Since 2001, the Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office has recorded the remains of 2,228 border crossers and determined the age in 62 percent of those cases.Out of those, 72 are juveniles and children 17 and under. They include a 2-year-old girl who died in a car accident in 2003 and a 3-year-old boy who probably died of hyperthermia as his mother carried him through the desert in Sells.
Another 600 sets of remains belong to girls and boys ages 18 to 29.
No matter how many people die or how dangerous crossing the desert can be, some people have to experience it in order to believe it.
Isaac Fernández, 15, arrived in Nogales, Sonora, last week from Honduras with two cousins who are in their 20s. Twenty-four days before, he had left his home in Sand Pedro Sula, a town near the coast, close to the Guatemala border.
He took a seven-hour bus ride from Honduras to Guatemala, another bus from Guatemala all the way to Puebla, Mexico, and from there rode “The Beast,” as migrants call the freight trains they climb aboard even as it speeds down the tracks.
During his journey, Isaac saw a man fall off the train and “split in half,” he said in Spanish from the park where immigrants hang out during the day before going to the shelter at night. Wearing blue shorts, Converse tennis shoes and a green backpack with the essentials: toothpaste, toothbrush, pants and soap.
One day he entered a rail car to find a man dead, his hands tied.
And at one point he jumped onto a rail car with no place to sit and was forced to ride standing up, gripping a metal bar all night.
“If I fell asleep I would tumble down,” he said with a smile.
That was the first time he felt scared during the trip, but not enough to deter the Honduran high school student. He was determined to travel to Houston and see his father, who left nine years ago, when Isaac was just 6.
“They say the trip kills you, but I am not afraid,” he said. “Not all the trips are the same.”
Contact reporter Perla Trevizo at ptrevizo@azstarnet.com or 573-4210
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