Tijuana

The search for a 12-year-old boy ended Monday when he was found in a church-operated shelter for migrants in Tijuana.

Aaron Noe Ortega-Cervantes was living with his mother in Vista when he did not attend class at Lincoln Middle School on the morning of Sept. 4, Sheriff’s Sgt. G. Revell said.

Revell said investigators learned that Noe turned himself in to Carlsbad police and said he was a non-resident orphan and wanted to return to Mexico. The boy was turned over that day to the U.S. Border Patrol at the San Onofre immigration checkpoint.

Officials from the Mexican Consulate interviewed Noe on Sept. 5 and authorized his voluntary return to Mexico, where he was released to the Casa Del Migrante shelter, Revell said.

Mexican authorities are to determine whether the boy should be reunited with his mother in Vista, where they lived near relatives for three months, or his father in Tijuana.