‘Done out of desperation’: Immigrant baby smuggled into U.S. reunited with parents by border agents

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Few know the acts of desperation undocumented immigrants have to resort to in order to get to the United States.

It's a dangerous -- often times grueling trek -- across unforgiving terrain.

Migrants become easy targets for smugglers.

"I've been in the Border Patrol for 20 years now," agent Mario Escalante said. "I can tell you that I don't have enough fingers or toes to tell you how many times I've seen this incident or been part of something like this."

Escalante is referring to an incident that took place in late January in El Paso.

"We made the arrest of some migrants, Ecuadorian citizens, at the airport," he said. "Among them was a couple that relayed to us -- in this case we’re very fortunate -- that they relayed to us that they actually had a daughter with them, and that she had been previously smuggled."

The migrant couple told agents that they believed the smuggler who was taking their 2-year-old daughter across the border was apprehended at one of the international bridges.

"That in itself gave us a lot to work with. We were able to contact our partners at Customs -- at the ports," Escalante said.

When Border Patrol reached out to CBP's Office of Field Operations, they discovered that a few days earlier, officers had arrested a 17-year-old girl at the Bridge of the Americas. She was attempting to smuggle a 2-year-old girl.

"This teenager had no idea who the child was. Being a teenager, she doesn’t even know how to care for a child, nor did she even care to even try," said Samuel Cleaves, the Acting Port Director for El Paso. "It’s very dangerous."

The 2-year-old was handed off to Health and Human Services. This is the governmental agency in charge of caring for unaccompanied immigrant children.

Once Border Patrol and CBP were able to connect the dots, the 2-year-old was reunited with her parents.

"I think this was one of the -- in my experience -- one of the few and lucky times that we were able to see something like this," Escalante said. "We’ve experienced it before where families are separated in this nature, so we’re very happy that this had a good conclusion."

As for the 17-year-old girl accused of smuggling the child across, she was released from custody since she is a minor. CBP said no immediate charges were brought, but the case is still under investigation. She is a U.S. citizen.

"There is an effort to take advantage of these people that are vulnerable in this state. It’s a combination of things. It’s not a black and white issue," she said. "We should definitely seek to understand and try to know why people are doing what they're doing and not automatically assume it’s for the worst.” 

Marisa Limón Garza, the deputy director of the Hope Border Institute, cautions that people should not be quick to judge the decisions of these migrant parents.

Limón Garza volunteers at migrant shelters in Ciudad Juárez where asylum seekers wait for their day in court in the U.S. She explains that many of these migrants feel they have no other option but to hand their children to smugglers. They're coerced into think it's what is best for them.

"It’s often times done out of desperation, out of fear. These are people who have endured tremendous amounts of trauma," Limón Garza said.

In recent years, immigrant advocates have been critical of the actions of CBP when it comes to caring for migrants.

Agents were heavily scrutinized during the peak of the migrant surge in 2018. ProPublica published a report which uncovered a secret Facebook group comprised of CBP employees.

Agents made jokes about migrant deaths and posted sexist memes.

In the case of the Ecuadorian family, Limón Garza praised the work of the agents and officers who helped reunite the parents with their child.

"We know that our Border Patrol partners and CBP -- these people are part of our local community. They’re our neighbors, our friends, our parishioners, just as much as anybody else here. At the end of the day, it’s a reminder that we do have that common humanity," she said. "That’s the kind of chapter we want to begin here in the Borderlands and start fresh with a new perspective of how to welcome people.”

Border Patrol tells ABC-7 the Ecuadorian family was expelled to Mexico due to Title 42. It's a provision in U.S. law that aims to prevent Covid-19 from entering through borders by letting CBP quickly expel migrants they apprehend, without detaining them.

So far in this fiscal year, which began in Oct. 2020, more than 183,000 migrants have been expelled in the Southwest border.