Helping to prevent unaccompanied children from leaving Honduras

Fireflies glow in the humid night sky above the Agua Caliente, Guatemala, border checkpoint as seen from a clandestine footpath used by smugglers to sneak Central Americans into Guatemala. Many are destined for the United States.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

The glow of a flashlight carried by a local pedestrian through the dark forest delineates a footpath often used by emigres to circumvent the Guatemala border checkpoint behind the trees near Ocotepeque, Honduras. It’s one of the many routes that defies police control of Central American minors bound for the United States.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

A member of an elite team of Honduran national police agents boards a bus at a checkpoint near Ocotepeque to look for children heading for the United States via Guatemala.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

A mother and her sleepy children get off a Guatemala-bound bus at a checkpoint a few miles south of the border. An elite force of American-trained police stopped the bus and searched for parents with children heading to the U.S.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

A girl holds her brother’s hand while answering questions from Commissioner Miguel Martinez Madrid, left, who holds their ID cards. Questions are designed to help discern whether children are being smuggled to the U.S. In this case the parents said they were not leaving Honduras.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Men are lined up against a Guatemala-bound bus stopped by authorities on a highway near Ocotepeque, Honduras. Men were searched for weapons, women were separately questioned and children were carefully screened.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Commissioner Miguel Martinez Madrid, who leads the special unit of Honduran police working at the border, speaks with a mother who was pulled off the Guatemala-bound bus.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Members of a special team of Honduran police agents wave down a bus on the highway to Ocotepeque, Honduras, a border town a few miles south of Guatemala. The road is a popular route for emigrant Honduran children on their journey to the United States.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Jennifer Mayela Lara, 5, points at her mother after being asked by police agent Noel Hernandez to identify her parents. She was traveling with just her mom, and a single parent must have the child’s passport and written authorization from the absent parent to legally leave Honduras.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

As other passengers re-board a Guatemala-bound bus, 2-year-old Jose Pineda Ramos clings to his mother, Ana Maria Ramos, 34, who was detained by an elite unit of the Honduras national police because she didn’t have the proper documents to take her son out of the country.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Special agent Gessler Flores Colindres talks to a Honduran child at a checkpoint a few miles from the Guatemala border. This family had the proper documents to cross into Guatemala.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Damilo Avila Zavala, 16, is escorted from a Guatemala-bound bus by police agent Jose Sauceda near Ocotepeque, Honduras. The teen said he was visiting his girlfriend in the town and not going farther north, and was let go after agents visited the girlfriend’s home and confirmed his story.  (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Honduran special agents walk past a border monument along a smuggler’s trail that parallels the Guatemala border near Ocotepeque, Honduras.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

Trash sits along the Lempa River between Honduras and Guatemala. When agents are not on patrol here, smugglers use the route to slip people around the nearby border gate and into Guatemala.   (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)