audio, stills, text and or video: Go to zReportage.com to see more - About 200,000 immigrants from Central America, many of them children traveling alone, illegally crossed the Texas-Mexico border in 2014, an unprecedented and unexpected surge. Since October, U.S. Border Patrol has detained about 230,000 immigrants at the Southwest border, mainly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, including 63,000 unaccompanied children. The surge of minors crossing the U.S. border in recent months has overwhelmed federal processing facilities, fanning a political firestorm, and given the Obama administration fits as it grapples with caring for thousands of children already in the country. Despite government promises to help deported families return to their communities and get back on their feet in Guatemala, human rights activist Norma Cruz criticized the lack of services for families in the midst of a crisis. ''The mothers come broken ... the children are hungry,'' said Cruz, who also met with the families at the airport. ''This is just a grain of sand in the wave that's going to come.''
© Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Jan. 17, 2014 - Brownsville, Texas, U.S. - A Custom and Border Patrol officer walks with an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who was found hiding in the tall grass just south of the border wall near Weslaco. The immigrant voluntarily walked with the officer and is not cuffed.
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Jan. 29, 2014 - Falfurrias, Texas, U.S. - RAFAEL HERNANDEZ, director of Angeles del Desierto stands over the body of an undocumented immigrant, after placing a cross he made of broken twigs. Hernandez came across the body while searching on a ranch just outside Falfurrias. The death witnessed by a handful in South Texas was a precursor to the record number of Central American immigrants that were apprehended in 2014.
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June 11, 2014 - Mcallen, Texas, U.S. - U.S. Border Patrol agents question a group of adult and minor immigrants near Anzalduas Park. A wave of Central American adults with children and unaccompanied minors has overwhelmed U.S. Immigration and Customs detention centers. Immigration officials release some of them on their own recognizance after undergoing processing.
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June 24, 2014 - Roma, Texas, U.S. - Using an inflatable raft, coyotes, or smugglers, carry immigrants across by the international bridge on the Rio Grande. According to law enforcement officials, higher risk smuggling operations have moved into Starr County in order to avoid the saturated border in Hidalgo, County.
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June 25, 2014 - Granjeno, Texas, U.S. - An infant cries as U.S. Border Patrol agents process a group of immigrants. The city is just north of 'El Rincon del Diablo,' the Devils Corner, a hotbed of illegal border crossings on the Rio Grande by juvenile and mothers with children immigrants from Central America.
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June 26, 2014 - San Pedro Sula, Honduras - A young girl peers out of a bus window waiting with other children to be taken to a shelter. Thirteen busses full of children and their families arrived overnight, at the Honduras Family and Children Shelter Center carrying citizens of Honduras that were apprehended and deported from various cities in Mexico.
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June 27, 2014 - Corinto, Honduras - Captain CARLOS MADRID of the Honduras Military Police checks the identification papers of a Honduran woman traveling with her two children to Guatemala. One child was born in Honduras and the other was born in Guatemala, and they were allowed to pass.
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June 30, 2014 - Tegucigalpa, Honduras - GLORIA NUNEZ, 49, changes the diapers for her injured son ALLAN CRUZ, 22. Cruz was hit by a vehicle in Celaya, Mexico, while heading to Houston, to look for work back in 2011. The family of six live in a one room apartment in Barrio El Pedregalito. Nunez's kitchen consists of a portable gas burning-one-pot stove, at left.
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July 4, 2014 - Tegucigalpa, Honduras - ALLAN OLIVA, 24, carries his brother MARCO OLIVA, 21, who had his legs amputated after trying to jump on a train heading north through Mexico earlier this year. They live with 11 other family members in a house in Barrio Colonia Divanna dominated by the gang '18'. Marco's father was killed by gang members in 1995, when he was 2 years old. Many young Honduran immigrants leave their country to escape the increasing violence.
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July 5, 2014 - Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Family members and friends carry the casket and walk in a funeral procession of a 24 year-old man shot four times by gang members for not completing a task he was asked to do, in the small colonial town of Valle de Angeles, Honduras, just outside Tegucigalpa. Tens-of-thousands of Central Americans - many from Honduras - fled the increasing violence and crossed into the United States in 2014.
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July 8, 2014 - La Libertad, Honduras - JOSE LUIS RAMOS CASTILLO, 16, talks with his grandmother MARIA DE JESUS RODRIGUEZ, 83, through the kitchen window as she prepares a pot of frijoles for their family. Castillo had planned to leave for the U.S. the day before with a friend, but the friend backed out because he didn't have the money he wanted to take. The two teens are planning another departure date. Castillo hadn't told his grandmother that he plans to leave.
© Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 22, 2014 - Guatemala City, Guatemala - Guatemalan Government workers, in blue vests, escort mothers with their children from the plane after being deported from the U.S. Three planes, two full of adults and a third full of adults including 7 mothers and 13 children, arrived at the Guatemala Air Force side of La Aurora Airport.
© Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

July 23, 2014 - San Lucas, Guatemala - A young girl says her prayers with others before eating lunch at Casa Rosa de Amor in San Lucas, just outside Antigua, Guatemala. Parents making the treacherous journey abandon children at shelters or orphanages some never to return out of neglect or having died along the trip.
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July 26, 2014 - San Jose De Las Flores, Guatemala - SIPRIANA JURARES DIAS, left, 43, sits with FRANCISCO RAMOS, her husband and father of their son GILBERTO RAMOS, 15, who lost his life on the journey to find work in the U.S. in order to send money to pay for his mother's medicine. Ramos died in the brush after crossing into South Texas. Their home is in San Jose Las Flores, a small village in the Cuchumatanes Mountains in Guatemala.
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July 26, 2014 - Tecum Uman, Guatemala - A woman from an evangelical woman's group in El Salvador looks across the Suchiate River from the Guatemala side looking for a 'sister' from her group, on the Mexican side, as immigrants and commerce crosses the Suchiate River which is the border between Guatemala and Mexico.
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30AM. The train system running north from the Guatemala-Mexico border transports thousands of Central American immigrants through Mexico. Immigrants have been killed or have lost limbs after falling off the top of trains.
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Aug. 13, 2014 - Mcallen, Texas - Central American immigrants including MARIA BERTALINA RAMIREZ, 21, left, of Honduras, with her son, JOSE JOEL, 1, are guided by Texas Game Wardens and a U.S. Border Patrol agent after they crossed the Rio Grande River by boat into the United States. The group of 14 was questioned and taken in vans to be processed.
© Lisa Krantz/San Antonio Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Aug. 14, 2014 - Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico - VLADIMIR RODRIGUEZ, 25, watches as a northbound train passes while waiting along the tracks. When asked why he didn't try to board it, he said, that one's going to Nuevo Laredo, too many problems with organized crime and I don't have the money to pay the bribes. He was waiting on the train to Piedras Negras, on the border with Eagle Pass, Tx.
© Jerry Lara/San Antonio Express-News/zReportage.com via ZUMA Press

Sept. 10, 2014 - Brownsville, Texas, U.S. - KC MASSEY, right, takes a drag on a cigarette as he sits with land owner RUSTY MONSEES JR. Monsees asked the militia group called Camp Lone Star, to set up camp on his property along the Rio Grande River. Armed militias patrolled the border in South Texas searching for immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. Several militia members were later arrested on gun charges and outstanding warrants.
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Dec. 19, 2014 - San Antonio, Texas, U.S. - With a mixture of joy, laughter, tears and befuddlement, LISVETTE SANCHES RODRIGUEZ, center, of El Salvador, comforts a grateful VINA LOPEZ, of Guatemala, with her two year old son, after a group of 11 immigrants from Central America were given food and clothing by members of the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, following their release from the Karnes County Residential Center. The Interfaith Welcome Coalition also found housing for them so they didn't have to spend the night at the San Antonio bus station where they were dropped off without food or money by the Residential Center. At right is MARILIN LOPEZ FIGUEROA, 8, and at left is SINDY COTOC OTZOY DE SIGUIN and her 4 year old daughter HEIDY.
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