Five undocumented immigrants in Port St. Lucie are facing child neglect charges after police found a one-year-old toddler wandering the street alone. The incident occurred last Friday, after Port St. Lucie Police received reports of the young child in the middle of the roadway on SW Darwin Boulevard where cars swerved to avoid hitting him, as reported by CBS12.
The child, later discovered to be from the 500 block of SW Sara Blvd, led officers to a residence where a grim scene unfolded; they found that the house lacked essential utilities like electricity, contained rotting food, and the children slept on mattresses on the floor, in a state the arresting officers felt a far cry from suitable living conditions for the minors, and during the investigation, surprisingly another child, a seven-year-old, was returned to the residence by a neighbor who assisted with school transportation, all five adults, Guatemalan nationals, were detained by the police. The five—Ofelia Chavez, 20, Emerson Edilberto, 21, Estiven Hidalgo, 24, Edwin Carbajal, 26, and Dais Hernandez, 23—are now being held at St. Lucie County Jail without the option of bond on an ICE hold.
According to authorities, Chavez was feeding a 4-month-old baby while her partner Edilberto and his brother Hidalgo were supposed to be watching the one-year-old who left through an unsecured sliding door. Carbajal and Hernandez are facing similar neglect charges for the living conditions of the seven-year-old, as noted by the CBS12 article.
The Port St. Lucie Police Department airlifted the children to safety and has since transferred the three U.S.-born children to the care of the Florida Department of Children and Families, medical examinations revealed signs of dehydration and lethargy but no indications of physical abuse, after which their parents, currently under ICE custody may face grave repercussions for the neglectful environment in which the officials found the children but no evidence physical abuse was made against the adults, as per WPBF.
