A two-year-old girl found near the U.S.-Mexico border has been held in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody for two weeks while agents attempt to locate her mother, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The child was discovered with a group of six undocumented immigrants two miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border near Campo, about 50 miles east of San Diego, on Nov. 27.
CBP said when the group was apprehended, the toddler was being carried by a teenager who told agents he had not seen the child's mother since the previous day.
The mother asked the teenager to carry her daughter when she became tired on the journey, he told CBP.
The 17-year-old told agents that before crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, the group separated and he could no longer locate the child's mother, so he crossed into the U.S. with the child, the agency said.
ICE took the toddler to a San Diego-area holding facility for children, where she is being held while agents attempt to reunite the child and mother, according to CBP.
The agency did not specify what efforts were being made to locate the child's mother.
U.S. & World
All six people detained told immigration authorities they were part of a caravan of Central American migrants who journeyed as a group to the United States' southern border.
