Last week both state and federal officials in Texas announced that 70 children reported as missing or runaways had been located, mostly throughout West Texas, as part of “Operation Lost Souls”.
The children were located and rescued by “a coalition of federal, state and local investigators,” reported KXAN. The rescues were made from late April until earlier this month.
National media has reported that the minors ranged from age 10 to 17, and many of the minors were reported as runaways, with authorities saying many of them were sexually abused. Federal officials also warned that the number of adults luring children to their homes seemed to increase over the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You have individuals who due to the pandemic have been unable to go see their friends or travel,” said Taekuk Cho, deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations. “When you feel secluded at home, not able to go out and about, they meet people online and go meet with these individuals,” Cho said.
“It could be a dating site, social media sites such as Tik Tok, Tinder, Snapchat,” he added, “They meet these individuals not knowing.”
Law enforcement officials said some of these children had likely been victim to sexual abuse, and noted that it is the job of law enforcement to monitor the Internet for child exploitation content, the proper term for child pornography.
“Part of our job is to track child exploitation websites,” said Homeland Security Investigations deputy Jorge Uribarri. “Our undercover officers often go there to find those who attempt to recruit children for sexual exploitation.”
While the majority were located in West Texas, missing children were located as far away as Dallas, Colorado, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
The results of the investigation were released on May 25, coinciding with National Missing Children’s Day.
This is the second investigation titled “Operation Lost Souls”, and the first operation located 20 missing children.
It is unclear whether illegal immigration played a role in any of the missing children’s cases, but some local media categorized the reporting as part of its border coverage. Additionally, Homeland Security Investigations is part of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement wing of the Department of Homeland Security.
News broke locally in El Paso, Texas that the children had been located last week, when El Paso resident and Texas gubernatorial candidate Robert Frances “Beto” O’Rourke was preparing to protest outside the NRA convention in Dallas.
If you have information about a human trafficking victim or have information about criminal activity related to human trafficking, please contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 888-373-7888.
