Counselors and non-profits say they hope to work with kids arriving at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center to help keep them from being exploited. About 3,000 teenagers started arriving at the convention center from the border Thursday morning.
"We are very concerned about the youth and children who are coming across the border," says Andrea Sparks, director of the Texas Child Sex Trafficking Team, launched by the governor's office about five years ago. "They are in a perfect storm of vulnerability."
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Sparks says many kids who are sent to the border alone wind up working for cartels or other gangs.
"They are scared. They are confused, and they are very likely to wind up in the hands of an exploiter," she says.
Sparks says the Child Sex Trafficking Team works with non-profits in more than half the state's counties to provide crisis intervention and counseling. She says case workers are trained to provide services to kids who are being trafficked.
"They can provide that long-term case management, trauma-informed care and supportive relationships these kids need, especially if they're being exploited," Sparks says.
"It is our pleasure to partner with the governor's office to ensure any and all exploited children in North Texas have access to services and are able to connect with the safe and healthy relationships they need to heal and thrive," says Cristy Lopez, an advocate with the group, Traffick911.
Governor Greg Abbott has said he wants the Biden Administration to give Department of Public Safety investigators access to shelters to allow them to investigate human trafficking. He says DPS could investigate whether children have been "assisted, coerced or threatened by cartels or human traffickers."
Abbott says those investigations could help investigators combat human trafficking and prevent additional children from being victimized.