U.S. Border Patrol agents found a toddler girl and her baby brother abandoned along the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, this week, in what the local chief patrol agent calls a "heartbreaking" discovery. The agency released a photo of the children, who were taken into custody but did not require medical care.
"A note under the infant safety carrier revealed the 2-year-old girl and 3-month-old boy, both nationals of Honduras, were siblings," the U.S. Border Patrol said in a statement about the discovery.
The agents were patrolling the border river when they happened to notice "a color they would normally not see in the river and turned back to investigate," tweeted the account of interim Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert N. Garcia.
The border agents found the little girl dressed in pink and yellow, with her shoes tied and her backpack at her side. Her brother was next to her, buckled into an infant carrier seat.
"It is heartbreaking and frustrating to know that there are children being abandoned without remorse or concern for their lives and wellbeing," Garcia said via Twitter as he praised the agents for their attention to detail.
On the sector's Facebook posting about the children's abandonment, many people called it an act of desperation. As one commenter wrote:
"I'm not sure why they are abandoned, but that little girl is wearing cute clothes, has a purse and her hair is braided beautifully. That baby looks to be covered from the sun, and strapped in the seat correctly. I bet their mom was horrified to leave them. ... But it's obvious they were loved."
The children were taken to the Border Patrol's processing facility in Uvalde, Texas. The agency did not respond to NPR's request for an update on their status before this story published.
During the summer, Garcia's predecessor as the Del Rio chief, Austin Skero, said the sector was averaging more than 1,000 migrants a day.
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