Over 3,000 unaccompanied kids have been apprehended at Yuma’s border

Single minor apprehensions are up 354% since 2020

YUMA, Ariz. (KECY, KYMA) - Over the last three years, over 300,000 migrant children have shown up at the border by themselves.

Sometimes they're brought across the border by other migrants or dropped off alone.

A video released by Border Patrol in March showed a smuggler leaving a one-year-old migrant child alone at the wall.

That child was one of the over 3,000 single minors local border patrol has brought into their custody this fiscal year.

In 2020, 33,000 unaccompanied migrants were apprehended at the southwest border.

In 2022, that number was 152,000, a 354% increase.

In D.C., Senators, and witnesses played the border blame game for that uptick at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“Under the Trump Administration, our immigration system became so restrictive, that families could not come to our border to apply for asylum together, forcing parents to send their kids alone," Democrat Senator from California Alex Padilla said.

Others blamed President Biden, as the numbers shot up shortly after he took office.

“Like the border crisis itself, this administration’s handling of unaccompanied minors is intentional," Lora Reis from the Heritage Foundation said.

But compromise has been hard to come by, so far this year the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced 43 immigration bills, and only one has passed through one chamber of Congress.