After several days of uncertainty, Sandra Padilla, the mother of two of the five small Central Americans who were recently abandoned at the border, made a public statement from Mexico.
“I need help because I want to be with my daughters, I would never have wanted to leave them there.
It hurt my soul and God knows it,
”said Sandra Padilla exclusively for Noticias Telemundo.
Padilla is the mother of Nasley, 7, and Cristal, 4,
two of five Central American girls between 7 years and 11 months who were found on May 9 in the Rio Grande Valley
, Texas, without any adult accompanying them, as reported by Customs and Border Protection (CBP, for its acronym in English).
Padilla, a Honduran woman, says she had no choice but to abandon them because they had tried to cross the border several times, but had been deported.
"
I never wanted to leave them there,
God knows I always asked him to take care of them," he explained in the interview.
[He left with his mother, but did not arrive with her: relatives of the migrant child who was left "dumped" at the border tell how he got there]
She also assures that the parents of the other minors traveled with her, her husband,
her brother Edixon and her sister-in-law Daisy, who are the parents of the 11-month-
old
baby
and another five-year-old girl.
The other girl found does not belong to the Padilla family.
Miriam Salinas, Sandra's mother who lives in Houston, Texas, referred to her daughter's situation: “Imagine she
is weak right now after so much walking, without eating and without anything
and I cannot imagine how she is because she had never left his daughters ”.
Sandra Padilla, mother of Nasley and Cristal, two of the five Central American girls found at the border.Noticias Telemundo
The whereabouts of the other parents of the minors are still unknown, meanwhile Sandra asks the United States government for help to hug her little ones again.
[Migrant children spend nights in parked buses before being reunited with their families, activists denounce]
The discovery of the girls occurred on a farm in the vicinity of Normandy, near San Antonio.
Property owners alerted the Border Patrol to their presence.
"
It is heartbreaking to find children so young
that they fend for themselves in the middle of nowhere," Austin Skero II, chief of the Del Rio Sector Border Patrol, said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, this happens far too often now," he added.
"If it weren't for our community and law enforcement authorities,
these girls could have faced temperatures in excess of 100 degrees
without help," said Skero II.
This incident recalls the desperate plight of Wilton Gutiérrez, a 10-year-old Nicaraguan boy who was found by an agent after he was left to fend for himself at the border in early April.
Wilton's mom dreams of seeing her son again after being kidnapped
April 15, 202102: 16
The images of the unaccompanied minor, crying and terrified after losing the group of migrants with whom he had crossed the border became a symbol of the danger and harshness of the journey that undocumented children face when crossing the border alone.
Since President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January, the southern border has seen an overwhelming increase in children arriving unaccompanied by a parent or adult. In March, the number of unaccompanied minors intercepted by border agents reached nearly 19,000, the highest number on record.