News

A 2-Year-Old Migrant Girl Has Gone Missing in the Rio Grande River

Her mother, who is from Haiti, was apprehended near the Texas town of Del Rio
AP_18177575795456

U.S. authorities are scouring the Rio Grande River at the U.S.-Mexico border, searching for a missing 2-year-old girl swept by the currents as she came into the country.

Since Monday, divers with U.S. Border Patrol and the Mexican government have been searching the waters that claimed a Salvadoran father and his young daughter just last week. The girl’s mother, who is from Haiti and was apprehended near the Texas town of Del Rio, told authorities she lost her Brazilian daughter in the river, according to NBC News.

Advertisement

On Tuesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents also sent an underwater vehicle through the river, according to CNN.

“Any time a child is lost, it is a tragic event,” Del Rio Sector Chief Patrol Agent Raul L. Ortiz told NBC News.

Increased snowpack in the Rocky Mountains has led to downstream flooding in the past few months, and has contributed to deceptively strong currents in the Rio Grande River straddling the border. That’s a huge issue for the migrants who are heading to the river to get around the Trump administration’s “metering” policy, which limits the number of asylum-seekers who can cross through legal ports of entry.

Border agents are rescuing immigrants from the river almost daily as the U.S. sees near-record numbers of migrants streaming across the border, according to the Guardian.

Cover: A U.S. Border Patrol vehicle sits above the Rio Grande River at the U.S. - Mexico border Tuesday, June 26, 2018, in Brownsville, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)