Small Texas border town is route to US for migrant children

ROMA, Texas (AP) - A small border town in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley has become the latest epicenter of illegal crossings, where growing numbers of families and children enter the United States to seek asylum.

Within an hour of darkness Wednesday, about 100 people have been ferried in rafts across the Rio Grande and into the U.S. in Roma, including many families with toddlers and children as young as 7 traveling alone.

They wear numbered wristbands that say “deliveries” in Spanish, apparently a way for smugglers to keep track of them. U.S. authorities have reported more than 100,000 encounters on the southern border in February, the highest since a four-month surge in 2019.

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