An unaccompanied minor smuggled into the U.S.
© US Border Patrol El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino via XAn unaccompanied minor smuggled into the U.S.
Border Patrol agents are rescuing young unaccompanied children smuggled into the country by cartel operatives, believing they have been drugged and abused.

"Sometimes we encounter criminal actions so horrendous they defy human decency," El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino said in a recent social media post.

He described how Border Patrol agents rescued a young boy "from a trafficker who heavily dosed him w/ sleep aids to prevent him from talking to agents. Scarier still is the trafficker had birth certificates for more kids." Bovino also posted photos of the child and multiple Arizona birth certificates they discovered.

So sad for the innocents caught up in trafficking," he said in another social media post, adding that within 48 hours they rescued two more minors. "This is sad, reprehensible, and evil." In another post, he said, "We just caught another drugged child load within the past 48 hours that was just as bad. ... This is terrible. Poor children."

Birth certificates found in the possession of a human smuggler
© US Border Patrol El Centro Sector Chief Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino via XBirth certificates found in the possession of a human smuggler
After another rescue, he posted additional photos saying two more children were rescued "from being exploited by smugglers. These criminals are not related to the children they smuggle. These traffickers go to extreme lengths to smuggle these children - giving them sleep aids to keep them quiet."

"Exploiting kids like this is terrible. In one of the events, when the child was finally woken up, he began yelling for his grandmother. Simply terrifying for all involved. ... It's our intention to stop this terrible practice."

California has seen record numbers of illegal border crossers under the Biden-Harris administration. As Texas expanded border security efforts, illegal activity moved west, with record numbers of people and drugs pouring into California.

California now leads the U.S. in apprehensions but shares the smallest portion of the US-Mexico border, 137 miles. Its patrolled by Border Patrol agents in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection El Centro and San Diego sectors.

At a recent U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security hearing, retired San Diego Sector Border Patrol Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke testified to the chaos of the last 3.5 years.

U.S. Rep. Anthony D'Esposito, R-NY, asked him about female victims "taken over by gangs and others trying to get them across the southern border," referring to Heitke testifying that "it's very common that female migrants are raped during the process. Most of them believe it's just part of the payment" for being smuggled into the country.

Heitke described what they discovered after large numbers of unaccompanied minors were being brought in.

"We started to see recruiters in Mexico that would go around in the Tijuana area because the migrants would stage in Mexico before they came to the United States," he said.

Cartel operatives would recruit teenage girls in Tijuana "and they would leave their families. Oftentimes, they had traveled to Tijuana with their families. They would leave their families behind, come to the United States, claim they were unaccompanied minors, and they would be put up in the facilities that the charities had set aside for them in San Diego."

From there, they were trafficked into forced prostitution, Heitke said.

"Once they had been put up" at the charity facilities "they're not held in detention. It's just a room." Their smugglers had given them a phone number to call. When they called, a recruiter "from Oakland or Los Angeles picked them up." The teenagers were "then brought up and forced into prostitution, oftentimes in the Oakland and Los Angeles area, and other places in the country we had active cases going on.

"But because we did not have the resources, because we were inundated with so many people, we couldn't follow up" on active human trafficking cases, Heitke said.

Border Patrol agents "deal with death, women and children that have been raped, abused, trafficked, bought and sold, families that have spent months in terrible conditions, sickness, and despair. If you look at the dramatic rise in the number of suicides within the Border Patrol it is directly correlated with the migrant surge. The agents have been pushed beyond their limit and this has greatly impacted their physical and mental health."

Fixing the border crisis doesn't require new legislation but enforcing existing law, he said.

At a U.S. House Judiciary Committee hearing, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux echoed similar sentiments. Current policies "caused a major crisis in California and in America. California is an open territory for the cartel to do whatever it wants," he said. He's also said he's among many California sheriffs who don't support Harris for president.

Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement chief Tom Homan agrees, saying Biden-Harris policies "are inhumane. They caused over 450,000 children to enter the country illegally who were separated from their families and out in the hands of criminal cartels and then they lost track of nearly 100,000 of them. HSI has found some children working in disgusting forced labor conditions and many being rented over and over again to the cartels to be used as pawns for single adults to claim a family unit," he told The Center Square.

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, has led the charge to protect unaccompanied minors. His latest effort was blocked by one Democrat from Oregon, The Center Square reported.