Border Patrol Agent Says Girls Dropped Over Fence Asked For Food After Rescue

The U.S. Border Patrol shared video footage from New Mexico earlier this week that showed two young sisters who were transported to the U.S.-Mexico border by smugglers being dropped over a 14-foot barrier separating the two countries.

Gloria Chavez, the chief of the U.S. Border Patrol's El Paso sector, said both young girls were doing "fine" when she visited them the day after Border Patrol agents performed the rescue. During an interview with Fox News' Your World host Neil Cavuto, Chavez said the girls were "a little hungry" when she visited them, so she offered to help them with a snack.

"The next day when I visited with these little girls, they are so loving and so talkative," Chavez told Cavuto. "Some of them were asking the names of all the agents that were there around them, and they even said they were a little hungry, so I helped them peel a banana and opened a juice box and just talked to them."

A photo Fox News obtained showed Chavez bending down in front of the two girls with a tray in hand, on which sat the snack she described.

Interest in the smuggling event began earlier this week when the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) released video footage that showed a smuggler lowering one of the girls onto the U.S. side of the border while sitting atop the fence. The smuggler eventually dropped the child the rest of the way to the ground, where she stayed still for a few seconds before starting to move. The smuggler then did the same with a second child before tossing over a third item and vanishing on the opposite side of the fence.

Chavez told Cavuto she was "horrified" when she first saw the footage of the girls dropping several feet.

"I was appalled to see that young child just dropped like that from a 14-foot barrier to the ground in an area where, it's so rocky, it's so mountainous, it's so remote," she said.

Chavez added that she was "so grateful" when she learned the children were not seriously injured after landing on the U.S. side of the border.

According to a CBP news release, the incident occurred Tuesday evening west of Mt. Cristo Rey in the Sunland Park area. A Santa Teresa agent caught sight of the smuggling incident with help from cameras documenting the events along that section of the border and sent agents to retrieve the children.

The sisters, whom the CBP said are originally from Ecuador, are ages 3 and 5, according to the release. They were both alert when agents arrived to rescue them but were taken to a hospital as a precaution, the release added.

After the children were cleared by medical officials, they were taken to a temporary holding area to await official placement by the Department of Health and Human Services, CBP said.

Newsweek reached out to the CBP for updates on the children's conditions and will update this article with any response.