A 15-year-old Mexican teen led police on a high-speed chase on Tuesday in Mission, Texas, that ended with seven migrants bailing out of the vehicle on a dirt road, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.
All seven migrants were apprehended after a foot chase, while the teen driver was arrested and charged with smuggling of persons and evading arrest. He is being held in juvenile detention.
Video released by the Texas Department of Public Safety shows police attempting to pull the teen over in the South Texas border town.
MIGRANT ENCOUNTERS HIT 156,274 IN JANUARY AS BIDEN CLAIMS NEW BORDER MEASURES WORKING
The teen refused to stop and eventually turned down a dirt road less than a mile from the U.S.-Mexico border. Seven migrants bailed out of the vehicle and ran into a wooded area surrounding the road.
Cartels have increasingly turned to children for their human smuggling operations because "they are well aware of the lenient consequences involving juveniles," Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Christopher Olivarez said.
"We continue to see an uptick involving juvenile smugglers who are recruited by transnational criminal organizations. In some cases we encounter juvenile smugglers who are illegal immigrants. They are used to cross into the U.S. for the sole purpose to smuggle both people and drugs," Olivarez told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
"Social media platforms remain to be a large recruiting tool for smuggling specifically targeting juveniles."
The 15-year-old arrested in Mission on Tuesday will go through the juvenile court process for both felony counts he's been charged with. Once those proceedings are done, he'll be released to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
