Number of unauthorized immigrant children crossing alone on the rise

They may come here to find their families who made the journey before them or to escape an abusive environment.

Some minors may cross the border just to find work and support their families back home.

Whatever the reason, undocumented minors are crossing the border into the US illegally and when they are caught many stay here.

We were allowed into the facility in Los Fresnos, which is run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement back in 2007.

Teens attended class in portable buildings, had lunch and dinner in a cafeteria and then retired to their dorm style sleeping quarters all inside a camp-like fenced area just down the street from Los Fresnos High School.

Back then, administrators told us there were 104 boys and 55 girls at their facility. Today those numbers have increased, but the department of health and human services would not give us specific numbers.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar says the increase in children illegally and entering the country is absolutely startling.
 
In 2012, the program saw an increase in referrals from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which doubled its size.

The program averaged 6,775 per year to 24,668 in 2013. 
 
The majority of unaccompanied minors are from Guatemala who make their way here through Mexico. It's a more than 12 hundred mile trek to Brownsville.
 
Cuellar says while agents are working overtime to secure the border, they are spending countless hours in an office doing paperwork to process thousands of children.
 
Aside from the burden it puts on us, Cuellar says the dangers these children face while traveling alone is what is most concerning.