In Texas' Rio Grande Valley, a seemingly endless surge of immigrants

By Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Cindy Carcamo

June 13, 2014, 10:59 PM|Reporting from Mission, Texas

The call went out on Border Patrol radios just before sundown one day this week: 31 immigrants spotted illegally crossing the Rio Grande on a raft..

No sooner had the migrants been found hiding in the mesquite brush than another report came in: A woman and boy were walking up the riverbank.

The Rio Grande Valley has become ground zero for an unprecedented surge in families and unaccompanied children flooding across the Southwest border, creating what the Obama administration is calling a humanitarian crisis as border officials struggle to accommodate new detainees. Largely from Central America, they are now arriving at a rate of more than 35,000 a month.

Anzalduas Park, a 96-acre expanse of close-cropped fields and woodland that sits on the southern bend of the river, has turned from an idyllic family recreation area into a high-traffic zone for illegal migration.

The number of children and teenagers traveling alone from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador is expected to reach up to 90,000 across the Southwest border by the end of the year, along with a surge of families with children seeking safe passage into the U.S.

"This is the hottest spot in the nation for crossings," said Hidalgo County Precinct 3 Constable Lazaro "Larry" Gallardo, a valley native who said he had never seen a migration wave of such a scale during his 14 years in office. "Something's got to be done because the numbers are just too high."

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