A heartbreaking video that recently went viral shows a 10-year-old immigrant from Nicaragua wandering alone and crying near the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas when he walks up to a U.S. Border Patrol officer and asks him for help. Wilton Gutierrez Obregón was visibly shaken when he told the officer what happened.
“I was with a group of people and they dumped me, and I don’t know where they are,” Wilton says in the video.
Those people turned out to be the ones who kidnapped Wilton and his mother, Meylin Obregón Leiva, who made it to the U.S. seeking asylum, but were sent to Mexico under the Trump-era policy known as Title 42. The policy is still being used by the Biden administration, but does not include unaccompanied minors.
Wilton and his mother fled Nicaragua, allegedly to get away from domestic violence. Once in the U.S., they were sent to Mexico to await a court hearing. That’s when they were kidnapped. Wilton’s uncle, Misael Obregón, who lives in Miami, then received a call from the kidnappers who demanded he pay $10,000 for their safe return.
Misael could only raise $5,000, so the kidnappers only set Wilton free. That’s when the U.S. Border Patrol officer found him. According to Misael, Meylin is still with her abductors. Wilton is currently in a shelter for unaccompanied minors in Brownsville, Texas.
Wilton’s case has put pressure on the Biden Administration to reverse Title 42, which some say makes asylum seekers the targets of criminals when they are sent to Mexico.
While Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said asylum seekers “who claim credible fear…should have the opportunity to present those claims to U.S. authorities,” he used the pandemic to defend the ongoing Title 42 policy.
“We are executing the directive of the CDC,” Mayorkas said. “It has made a determination that Title 42 authority should be employed to address the public health needs of not only the American public but of the migrants themselves.”
