Blind migrant with white stick and abandoned 3-year-old in a group of 200 Central Americans who turned themselves in to US Border Protection after crossing from Mexico into Texas
- A Salvadoran blind man was among over 200 migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents in Texas on Tuesday
- Most of the migrants were Central Americans from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras
- There was also a three-year-old unaccompanied child from Honduras who was abandoned by his parents in Mexico
- The migrants were transported to the processing center in McAllen, Texas
A blind man from El Salvador and an abandoned three-year-old boy were among a group of migrants from Central America who crossed into the United States from Mexico this week and turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents.
The heartbreaking images taken on Tuesday in Los Ebanos, Texas, showed the Salvadoran man leaning on the shoulder of another man who accompanied him on their journey.
One picture shows the man, who has not been identified, holding his white stick and presenting his legal identification card to an officer from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency at a makeshift processing area inside a tent offering protection from the sun.
Another photo showed a Honduran man walking a three-year-old migrant boy from from the same Central American country, who was reportedly abandoned by his parents while journeying through Mexico.
A blind man from El Salvador was among over 200 migrants, mostly from Central America, who crossed the Rio Grande and turned themselves in to Border Patrol agents in Texas on Tuesday
A woman receives IV fluids after she gave herself in to U.S. Border Patrol officers Tuesday in hope of obtaining asylum
A fellow Honduran (left) walks an unaccompanied three-year-old boy (right). He said the boy’s parents had abandoned him eight days before during their journey through Mexico
A CBP spokesperson told DailyMail.com that there were around 200 migrants, mostly from Guatemala and Honduras, alongside a few from El Salvador, who voluntarily went up to Border Patrol agents near Los Ebanos, a small community with a population just under 400.
A picture of a tired woman being administered IV fluids revealed the harrowing journey undertaken by the migrants seeking asylum.
Just a couple of feet from her sat a tired woman being treated for heat exhaustion by officers.
The blind man from El Salvador presents is interviewed by a Border Patrol officer after he turned himself in Tuesday in Los Ebanos, Texas
A bevy of immigrants, mostly from Central America, wait in a queue to be interviewed by the Border Patrol
Over 200 migrants voluntarily turned themselves in after illegally crossing into the United States from Mexico on Tuesday
The migrants told the law enforcement agents that they had entered the United States by rafting across the Rio Grande.
It was the same stretch of water whose strong rip current dragged a 25-year-old Salvadoran man and his 23-month-old daughter before they drowned on June 24. They bodies were located on the Mexican side of the river the following day.
The group detained Tuesday were transported to a processing center in McAllen, Texas.
A migrant woman cools herself down with water near the southern United States border town of Los Ebanos, Texas
A Border Patrol agent checks the arm of a migrant woman who said she underwent operation in her shoulder
A migrant woman and child interact with a U.S. immigration border officer before they were transported to a processing center in McAllen, Texas
Their detention came on the same day as a federal judge in Seattle blocked a Trump administration policy that would keep thousands of asylum-seekers locked up while they pursue their cases, saying the Constitution demands that such migrants have a chance to be released from custody.
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman ruled Tuesday that people who are detained after entering the country illegally to seek protection are entitled to bond hearings.
Attorney General William Barr announced in April that the government would no longer offer such hearings, but instead keep migrants in custody. It was part of the administration’s efforts to deter a surge of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Pechman said that the migrants are entitled to the Fifth Amendment’s due-process protections, including ‘a longstanding prohibition against indefinite civil detention with no opportunity to test its necessity’.
A Salvadorian woman questions a U.S. Border Patrol agent before she and her son were taken into custody Tuesday in Los Ebanos, Texas