Most of the Mexican children caught illegally crossing the southwest border on their own are repeat offenders, a report released this week shows.
Based on Mexican government data, the Pew Research Center report shows only 2,700 of the more than 11,000 apprehensions of unaccompanied Mexican children from this fiscal year through May 31 involved boys and girls caught for the first time. The rest involved children who had been apprehended at least once before. Children in 15 percent of the apprehensions had been caught at least six times.
“The total number of Mexican children caught at the border is lower than apprehension statistics show,” the report says. “However, the lack of fingerprinting by Mexican authorities makes it difficult to estimate an actual number of children crossing the border.”
The Pew report points to some reasons why so many of the Mexican children caught at the border are repeat offenders. Their close proximity to the U.S. border is one factor. Second, federal authorities rapidly return most Mexicans children to their home country. In contrast, federal law requires the government to care for unaccompanied Central American children or transfer them to the custody of relatives in the U.S. while their immigration cases are processed in court.
The report also shows the greatest share of the apprehensions of Mexican children — 3,077 — have involved boys and girls coming from the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, which borders Texas.
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