PREMIUM --

Isias Vera Gomez, 17, sits at a juvenile detention hall in Nogales, Mexico, while authorites try and find his family and a way to get him back to his place of origin. Vera Gomez was caught by the border patrol trying to cross the desert and get to Atlanta. The numbers of children apprehended by Border Patrol agents is staggering. Between Oct. 1, 2005, and April 30, 2006, agents apprehended 59,397 Mexican children aged 17 and under and 9,738 children of other nationalities. Photo by Fernando Salazar/Wichita Eagle/KRT/ABACAPRESS.COM