“It has gone down about 30 percent, the number of children we see passing through here”

“It has gone down about 30 percent, the number of children we see passing through here,” said Marvin Lopez, a manager of one of the most commonly used bus lines here. “Not nearly as many families.”

At a police substation on the road to the border with Guatemala, which is about a 45-minute ride from the bus station, officers said that they had been detaining 15 to 20 minors a day in recent months, but that in the past couple of weeks it had dropped to two or three.

One night last week, Maria Enriques was one of two women who were detained with their children when officers stopped the truck, with Guatemala license plates, in which they were traveling without appropriate documents for the children.

“I was just taking him to his father in Guatemala, but now I guess we just have to go home,” said Ms. Enriquez, the mother of a 1-year-old boy. “They are saying nobody can go north unless both parents go, but how can we do this when so many of us are single parents here?”