Smuggler Abandons Toddler Along River: ‘We Got There in Time,’ US Border Agent Says

This scenario plays out so often, our sources inside the Border Patrol tell us they watch for it closely and act quickly. In this incident from last spring, a one-year-old Guatemalan child was abandoned along the Colorado River in Arizona.

As shown in the video below, a smuggler brought the baby across the border from Mexico, and then left him to fend for himself along the water’s edge. The BP spotted it, and rushed to protect the child. In the background, someone on the Mexico side of the border is seen speeding away on a motorbike.

The smuggler expected the response that he got, one BP agent tells us.

“He knew we would save the child. We got there in time,” the agent says. The agent was not involved in the incident, and spoke in a generic sense to describe how such scenes unfold.

“It’s a partial consolation that he did this in daytime,” the agent says. “In the dark of night, the baby could fall in the water and we might not be able to save him.”

Border Patrol agents monitor closely for these occurrences, the agent says.

“A child’s survival is at stake.”