2-Year-Old Held by Smugglers Rescued

A 2-year-old Brazilian girl kidnapped by smugglers and held for ransom in Mexico was returned to her mother after Border Patrol agents detained the woman attempting to cross the border illegally and learned of the abduction.

After determining that the child was being held at a hotel in Mexicali, Mexico, Border Patrol agents notified Mexican immigration officials, who rescued the child and took her abductor into custody.

The toddler was handed over to U.S. officials at the border late Wednesday night and reunited with her mother and 9-year-old sister, Border Patrol officials said.

“The consulate was just in an uproar trying to find the girl,” said Adriana Coogan, a staff member at the Brazilian Consulate in Los Angeles who worked on the case.

“You can imagine a 2-year-old in the hands of strange people. We don’t know what they could have done.”

The family is now being detained in a facility for women and children in San Diego, where the mother and the 9-year-old face charges of entering the U.S. illegally, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for the San Diego office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. A hearing will be held within a month.

The woman and her daughters are just a few of many Brazilians who attempt to enter the United States through Mexico. After Mexicans, Brazilians make up one of the largest group of undocumented immigrants arrested in San Diego, according to Border Patrol officials.

The 32-year-old San Paolo woman--whose name is being withheld--flew to Mexico from Brazil with her two daughters on Monday, apparently hoping to cross the border to join her husband, who lives in Boston, officials said.

The family reached Mexicali and was traveling north with a group of smugglers and other migrants.

But before they crossed the border, the smugglers took the toddler away from the woman.

The child was taken back to Mexicali and held there to extort more money from the woman, officials said.

“You’re dealing with one of the most ruthless bunches of people,” said Michael McGlasson, a spokesman for the Border Patrol office in Yuma, Ariz. “All they care about is getting your cash.”

Border Patrol agents caught the group of 12 in a Ford Bronco on Tuesday as they drove through the desert near the All-American Canal, seven miles northwest of Yuma.

As agents questioned the migrants, the Brazilian woman burst into tears and said her daughter had been kidnapped.

A Portuguese-speaking agent from the San Diego office was brought in to interpret, and officials determined that the driver of the Bronco knew where the child was being held.

Border Patrol agents contacted the Mexican and Brazilian consulates, along with Mexican immigration officials, who found the child at the Plaza Hotel in Mexicali. A woman with the child was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping.