The Costa Rican boy they left abandoned on Tuesday in the Arizona desert, by his uncle, will be transferred to a shelter in New York City, so he can see his mother.
The woman resides in that State illegally, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday morning, adding that the Tucson Border Patrol in Arizona agreed to move the six-year-old boy on a direct flight to New York.
The child remains in custody of the US government since Tuesday afternoon, when he was found by border police officers on the edge of the border road in Lukeville, Arizona.
He carried in his bag his birth certificate and a paper with telephone numbers of his relatives in Costa Rica.
On the day the boy was rescued he told U.S. authorities that he had left there by an uncle, who told him he would have to wait alone, while someone (police) would come to pick him up. The child was taken to the United States to be reunited with his mother, who lives in the U.S. in an “irregular condition”.
At the shelter in Tucson, the boy was visited by Mabel Segura, the Consul General of Costa Rica in Los Angeles and Carmen Bermúdez, the Consul General in Tucson, Arizona, who reported that the child is in good condition, despite the difficult conditions he had to endure during his wait in the middle of the desert.
According to Segura, there is a possibility that the mother will be allowed to keep the child with her.
The Foreign Ministry explained that the transfer of the child was possible after negotiating with the U.S. immigration authorities, who was originally scheduled to stay in a shelter in Arizona.
“The child will be located in New York so that he can see his mother and her family can see visit,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The consular staff is under orders of Chancellor Epsy Campbell to give priority to the case.
