A group of minors was attempting to cross the Southern border -- accompanied by a North American activist because their parents weren't present -- but they were stopped by Mexican Army soldiers.
Unaccompanied minors have been crossing the border with increasing frequency over the past few years, even though the route presents dangers, such as an increased number of missing and dead migrants.
"The Mexican Army stopped a North American activist from crossing a group of minors into the United States," Journalist Juan Mendoza Díaz wrote in a March 20 tweet.
According to the International Organization for Migration's Missing Migrants Project, the U.S.-Mexico border crossing is considered the deadliest land crossing in the world, with 728 deaths in 2021 alone. The IOM further notes the danger of the crossing by highlighting the June 27, 2022, discovery of 53 bodies in an abandoned tractor trailer in San Antonio, Texas, and the hospitalization of 16 survivors.
On March 6, the Mexican Government released a statement saying that the National Institute of Migration, a department of the Mexican Ministry of the Interior, while in conjunction with Criminal Investigation Agency of the Attorney General's Office, rescued 343 migrants from an abandoned trailer in Veracruz, Mexico. Of the 343 migrants, 103 were unaccompanied minors. The statement did not mention how long they had been abandoned nor why they did not make it all the way to the border.
A press release from House Energy & Commerce Committee states that Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Chair Morgan Griffith (R-VA) and Subcommittee on Health Chair Brett Guthrie (R-KY) came together to issue a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on the issue of the safety of migrant children.
"The number of unaccompanied children referred to ORR (Office of Refugee Resettlement) has skyrocketed from a low of 15,381 in fiscal year 2020 to 122,731 in fiscal year 2021 and 128,904 in fiscal year 2022," according to the letter.
Fox News reports that fiscal year 2022 had the highest number of total migrant deaths, with 856 lives lost. That is the highest number ever recorded by the Department of Homeland Security.
