Mexican authorities are warning refugee mothers about men seeking to buy migrant children to improve their chances of asylum at the United States border, Daily Mail reports.
Officials have grown concerned after men from 'Central America or Haiti' were seen approaching mothers - especially those deemed vulnerable - at the Iglesia Evangelica Embajadores de Jesus shelter in Tijuana offering them $350 to purchase a child to cross into the U.S.
It's unknown if the men were seeking to purchase the children for their own causes or if they were acting as intermediaries for other migrants searching for any possible way to circumvent their asylum requests with U.S. immigration officials.
According to a San Diego Union-Tribune Report, a 44-year-old Honduran mom has decided to keep her sons by her side after she saw men looking to buy children from mothers at the shelter.
'I can't go to work because I can't take my eyes off my boys,' Antonia Portillo Cruz said.