EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) — Four migrant children are safe after being abandoned on a raft in the Rio Grande.
U.S. Border Patrol agents from the Rio Grande Valley Sector assigned to the Fort Brown Station in Brownsville, Texas, rescued the children.
On X, Chief Patrol Agent Gloria Chavez called it a “heroic rescue,” adding, “Great response by our quick-thinking Border Patrol agents, these children are now safe!”
Chavez shared a photo of the four young unaccompanied migrant children on an inflatable raft among reeds in the river. She said a human smuggler left them there.
Newly released data shows that Border Patrol agents encountered 99,704 unaccompanied children during the Fiscal Year 2024, which ended on Sept. 30. Chavez said out of all those children, over 25,000, about 1 in 4, were encountered in the Rio Grande Valley.
In the three years before that, border agents in the Rio Grande Valley Sector encountered about half of the more than 425,000 unaccompanied migrant children who crossed the border illegally.