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In a troubling development, law enforcement has reported an uptick in cases involving unaccompanied minors being smuggled across the border. Lieutenant (Lt) from the Texas Department of Public Safety recounted a situation involving a 5-year-old girl who was smuggled through Del Rio. Authorities received photos depicting her being carried across the Rio Grande River by traffickers.
Thanks to the vigilance of Texas troopers and investigators who were positioned strategically, this child was intercepted and rescued just in time at a hotel where she was taken. Disturbingly, her mother, living in North Carolina and originally from Mexico, had paid $8,000 to a criminal organization for her daughter's illegal passage into the United States.