EL CENTRO, California (Border Report) — Border Patrol agents apprehended a group of five undocumented migrants, including two children, after human smugglers lowered them by rope down a 30-foot section of the border wall Friday morning in Calexico, Calif.
The incident happened around 3:15 Friday morning about 120 miles east of San Diego. It was recorded by camera operators assigned to the El Centro Station’s Remote Video Surveillance System (RVSS).
Agents observed a man being lowered down the border wall with the use of a rope, approximately 3 miles west of the Calexico West Port of Entry.
The camera operators then noticed another man being lowered, only this time they realized that a small child was clinging to his back. Subsequently, a third adult, a woman, holding on to another child, was lowered by the smugglers.
The camera operators also noticed three smugglers provided a ladder to climb the fence on the Mexican side. They also provided a rope and physically lowered each adult down the border wall into the United States.
“Smugglers often use this tactic to minimize their own risk of injury,” said Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino. “They are willing to put others in jeopardy, including children, even when they won’t risk themselves.”
Agents took the three adults with the two children into custody.
They were transported to the El Centro Station Processing Center for further processing.
“These heartless, greedy smugglers continue to endanger the lives of undocumented individuals for money,” said Chief Patrol Agent Gregory K. Bovino. “We were lucky that the mother and her two children, as well as the other two men, were not dropped from the 30-foot border wall.”
The two children, a 2-year-old girl, a 6-year-old boy, and their 32-year-old mother, were undocumented migrants from Venezuela.
The two other adults, a 28-year-old man and a 31-year-old man, both undocumented individuals from Venezuela had no relation to the mother and two children.