Baby bottles and smugglers' tracking wristbands: Photos reveal items migrants left behind when crossing into a Texas border town
Erin Snodgrass
- The border town of Roma, Texas, has become a hub for migrant crossings into the US.
- Once they reach US soil, many shed their possessions, keeping only their most important belongings.
- These are the items they left behind on the shore of the Rio Grande.
The small border town of Roma, Texas, has become a hub for migrant crossings, as a growing number of Central American immigrants enter the US seeking asylum.
In February 2021, US authorities reported more than 100,000 encounters on the southern border, while March has seen an average 0f about 5,000 people per day, which if the trend continues through the end of the month will be a a 50% increase over February, according to the Associated Press.
Roma, a town of 10,000 in the Rio Grande Valley has seen an increase in migrant crossings among families and unaccompanied children.
US Border Patrol agents told the AP that nightfall in Roma signals the arrival of inflatable rafts full of migrants from across the river in Mexico.
Most are Central Americans fleeing violence and persecution. Many are families with young children, and some are unaccompanied children as young as seven, traveling alone.
As the families and children reach the shores of America, they shed many of their belongings as they make the final leg of their journey toward US Customs and Border Protection.
According to the Los Angeles Times, after the migrants reach the shore, they rush up a path from the river toward a hilltop parking lot where US Customs and Border Protection agents sit waiting.
The families and children are then taken to an overcrowded holding area. More than 4,200 people are placed in a space designed for 250, the outlet reported.
Along the way, they rid themselves of everything but their most prized possessions.
"Many are crossing this month for the first time; they aren't worried about what they might need if they're sent back to Mexico," reporter Molly Hennessy-Fi ske wrote for the LA Times.
The banks of the Rio Grande river are littered with the objects they carried from home and discarded on the journey to America.
Migrants are reportedly given wristbands as a mechanism for smugglers to keep track of who to ferry across the river. The migrants discard the bracelets as soon as they reach the US.
According to the AP and the LA Times, smugglers hand out numbered, plastic wristbands to the migrants they ferry across the river that separates Texas and Mexico.
The bracelets act as proof of payment. Migrants without them told the LA Times they've been kidnapped and held by smugglers until family members agree to pay for their release.
The wristbands say "entregas" or "deliveries."
Once the migrants reach US soil in Roma, they discard the plastic wristbands.
Once they reach US soil, the migrants shed many of their possessions, keeping only the most important documents and items.
Clothes, backpacks, shoes, diapers, masks, Mexican money, and expired residency papers have all been found along the banks of the river, according to the LA Times.
They hold tightly to valid forms of identification and scraps of paper marked with relatives' US phone numbers.
Children as young as 7 make the perilous journey alone.
Mothers make the journey in hopes of a better life for their children.
Many families are traveling with young children.
Others are traveling with babies.
More than 16,000 unaccompanied children were in government custody as of last week.
Once they reach America, the migrants camp together in a park nearby, waiting for what comes next.
"Many don't have homes to go back to," a 17-year-old Guatemalan, Yan Alfaro, told the LA Times.
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