Video shows a child abandoned at the US-Mexico border asking a Border Patrol agent for help

A screenshot from the video.

Anjel Hernandez

• A video shows a migrant child alone near the US border crying and asking an agent for help.
• "I was with a group of people and they dumped me and I don't know where they are," he says.
• Customs and Border Protection has confirmed the authenticity of the video.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

Video footage shows a child alone near the US-Mexico border asking a Border Patrol agent for help.

The video shows the child crying, and he asks the agent: "Can you help me?"

He later said: "I was with a group of people and they dumped me and I don't know where they are."

"I'm afraid," he said.

Watch the video here:

ABC13 Houston reported that the video was shared on Facebook by a friend of the agent, and Customs and border Protection confirmed its authenticity.

CBP said the boy was aged 10 and from Nicaragua, ABC13 reported.

A CBP spokesperson told ABC13: "Scenes like these are all too common, as smugglers continue to abandon children in desolate areas, with zero regard for their wellbeing."

The boy is to be screened and put in the custody of Department of Health and Human Services, ABC13 reported.

An increased number of unaccompanied children have been arriving at the border after policy changes by President Joe Biden's administration, including measures to reverse controversial Trump-era policies, including ones that separated families.

The Biden administration says that it doesn't want to turn them back and to dangerous conditions, and doesn't want to send them to someone in the US who has not been properly vetted - and this leads to crowded detention centers at the border.

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