Mexican authorities are warning refugee mothers about men seeking to buy migrant children to improve their chances of asylum at the United States border.
Officials have grown concerned after men from ‘Central America or Haiti’ were seen approaching mothers – especially those deemed vulnerable – at the Iglesia Evangelica Embajadores de Jesus shelter in Tijuana offering them $350 to purchase a child to cross into the U.S.
It’s unknown if the men were seeking to purchase the children for their own causes or if they were acting as intermediaries for other migrants searching for any possible way to circumvent their asylum requests with U.S. immigration officials.
According to a San Diego Union-Tribune Report, a 44-year-old Honduran mom has decided to keep her sons by her side after she saw men looking to buy children from mothers at the shelter.
‘I can’t go to work because I can’t take my eyes off my boys,’ Antonia Portillo Cruz said.
Groups of men have shown up at the Iglesia Evangelica Embajadores de Jesus (pictured) in Tijuana, Mexico, seeking to purchase children for $350 that would be used as props to seek asylum at the United States border
A child stands next to the border fence separates Mexico from the United States
Portillo Cruz, whose sons are aged eight and 10, said that no offers were made to her but she fears the requests could very possibly turn into kidnappings if the mothers don’t accept the terms.
‘They want to rob our kids so they can cross into the United States,’ she added.
News of such tactic being employed by human traffickers in the vicinity of the shelter prompted pastor Gustavo Banda to beef up the security measures and chain down the entrance gate to the church.
‘These are cases of desperation,’ Banda said.
‘Of course, the women have not accepted any of these offers, but clearly this is a huge concern because of the danger to the children.’
A 15-year-old migrant from Haiti told the San Diego Union-Tribune of the moment she saw men visiting the shelter offering to buy children.
‘I could not even imagine the horror before I came here,’ she said.
A shelter is at near capacity with Mexican and Central American migrants in Tijuana, Mexico, who are looking to apply for asylum
Migrants mill around at the Juventud 2000 migrant shelter in Tijuana, Mexico
‘I just wonder what happens to the kids once they make it across. It’s not like their mom or dad who will care for them no matter what.’
According to the Department of Homeland Security, the government detected 46 cases of family fraud in fiscal year 2017 in comparison with 600 cases in fiscal year 2018, which came to a close in September 2018.
In February, Maynor Velásquez Molina, was accused of paying a family $130 to allow him to use their eight-year-old son to cross the southern United States border with Mexico.
The Guatemalan man paid an additional $130 to purchase an altered birth certificate.
Velásquez Molina and the child passed through the Lukeville, Arizona, border entry point on February 18 with over a hundred migrants but he was busted four days later after immigration authorities noticed the documents were not real.
A man places a candle on the Mexican shore near an international borderline fence that separates Mexico and the United States
A woman (center) holds a candle during a vigil held in honor of migrants who have died in the middle of their trips to the United States border with Mexico
According to Telemundo, the Central American migrant told border officials he ‘got a boy in Guatemala to cross the border with him from Mexico to the United States because he had been told that it was easier to enter that way.’
Shortly thereafter, DHS unveiled a pilot program in May in which the DNA of families was taken if they requested asylum at the southern border crossing with Mexico.
The program lasted just several days and was only administered at the Texas border entry points in the cities of McAllen and El Paso, the Washington Examiner reported.
At least 30 percent of adults were not related to the children who they claimed were theirs.
Since October 2018, DHS has reported over 1,000 fraudulent families at the border.