TEXAS, USA —
There has been a drastic increase in the number of migrant children taken in by Border Patrol in Big Bend and El Paso in the past year.
The numbers on the graph below represent how many of these children were taken in during February of last year compared to February of this year.
In 2020, Border patrol took in 222 children in the Big Bend area.
Skip to this year and that number has increased to 588. That is a 165% increase.
El Paso saw a big jump too. There, in 2020 a little more than 2,000 kids were taken in. This year that number has risen to over 5,200, a 144% increase.
Overall, on our southwest border there has been a 92% increase in children crossing over all by themselves.
Now, where are these children coming from?
The chart above shows the breakdown by country for just the first two months of this year.
As you can see, most of the kids fled from Guatemala. That's more than 10,000 children.
Guatemala is followed by Mexico with 9,508.
Honduras comes in at 6,071 and El Salvador at 2185.
Now here's the real eye opener. Take a look at the graph above.
The darker blue line represents all of 2020. The light blue line represents just the first two months of this year.
In the case of Honduras and Guatemala, we have seen more children cross by themselves in the first two months of this year than all of last year.