A Border Patrol official posting a video showing smugglers dropping young children over the border wall described the harrowing scene on “Fox & Friends First” Friday. El Paso Border Patrol Sector Chief Gloria Chavez said she was “horrified” and “very worried” that one of the two children was seriously hurt but described them as “so resilient” after being rescued by Border Patrol agents.
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GLORIA CHAVEZ: These are some tactics we see from smugglers all along the southwest border. When I first saw the images provided to me by my staff, I could not believe what I was watching. I was horrified. I was appalled to see that young child drop like that from a 14-foot barrier to the ground in an area where it’s so rocky, mountainous and remote.
And the child, for a few seconds, didn’t even move. So I was apprehensive until I started seeing her movement. Then I see a second child be dropped off that barrier and then like a third item be thrown over that fence and then to see them abandon these children there and run up a hill and run away without even caring for the welfare of those children or how they were on the other side of that barrier.
They were so resilient, so talkative. But I was standing there, and then I kneeled down and just wondered as they were talking to me what kind of experiences or nightmares they went through from Ecuador to our border that we don’t even know about because they were the ones that were being carried by these ruthless smugglers, with inhumane treatment of the most vulnerable population in the world, children …
From the [DHS] secretary’s level, Department of Homeland Security, all the way down to the frontline Border Patrol agent, we all know that these smugglers are very ruthless. They do colossal exploitation of children and families on this border. They take advantage of vulnerable situations when it comes to these human beings and exploit them for money. It is inhumane treatment of a human being.
And you know, Griff, you’ve been along our border in the El Paso sector. We stretch from Fort Hancock, Texas, to New Lordsburg, New Mexico. There are areas where children are just walking up to the border crossing without a barrier. So why take these two innocent little girls, three years and five years old, to an area in New Mexico where there is a 14-foot barrier and drop them from the top of it when there was another area where if they were going to push these little girls into the U.S. side, they could have easily walked through an open space where there was no need to harm them that way.
