SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — A disturbing trend has recently emerged from a migrant campsite at the border in Tijuana: Parents are encouraging their sons to scale the border wall and surrender to Border Patrol agents.
Residents say there are fewer teenage boys living at the campsite, which is directly south of the San Ysidro Port of Entry that connects San Diego and Tijuana.
Border Report obtained a video that shows a 13-year-old boy easily scaling the border barrier and dropping himself into U.S. territory as his father reportedly looks on.
“The father recorded his son and was able to see him get to the other side,” said an unidentified woman at the camp who claimed to know the boy and his family.
According to the woman, the boy’s family is from Central America and has been at the campsite for more than two months. She says this boy is one of many who have made the same journey.
“The vast majority of parents send their older sons, that’s what they’re doing, they don’t want them here suffering, they fear their sons are going to pick up bad habits here since they are not doing anything with a lot of idle time to waste.”
Another woman at the camp also said she has noticed more and more parents sending their kids north of the border.
“The parents feel a need to see their children become something in life, they risk sending their sons, so they can cross, and they sacrifice,” she said. “It’s something very difficult for a parent to throw their children to the other side.”
No official numbers are available as to how many older boys from the camp have left it to go the United States in the same fashion as the 13-year-old boy did. One resident said “it’s quite a bit, dozens at least.”
There’s no confirmation as to what happened to the young man in the video after he was picked up by agents. It is likely he was taken to a Border Patrol station for processing before being turned over to Health and Human Services.
