The U.S. Border Patrol is working to reunite two girls with their family after the sisters were found along the Arizona-Mexico border Tuesday.
The girls, who are 4 and 6 years old, were found by two agents alone in an area south of Morelos Dam, an “often-used crossing point by unaccompanied migrant juveniles,” a notice from the U.S. Border Patrol Yuma Sector stated on Facebook.
One of the agents approached the girls just after seeing them and escorted them to a safer area, the Facebook post said. The girls had a note with contact information for their “tia,” the Spanish word for aunt.
“The girls were taken into custody and attempts will be made to reunite them with family,” the post said.
John Mennell, a public affairs specialist with Customs and Border Protection (CBP), told The Hill that the girls are from Honduras and will be turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which will try to locate their family members. Mennell noted that the girls are likely still going through processing and may have already been turned over to HHS but could not confirm their current status.
The Biden administration has been allowing children who arrived at the border alone as well as some families to enter the country but has also been using the Title 42 policy, which started under the Trump administration, to quickly return those crossing the border without giving them a chance to apply for asylum.
A federal judge in September ordered the administration to stop using the policy to expel migrants, claiming that it denies “the proposed class members the opportunity to seek humanitarian benefits pursuant to the immigration statutes.”