Tegucigalpa, July 3 (RHC)-- Honduras' First Lady Ana García on Wednesday welcomed immigrant children caught while trying to enter the U.S. illegally.

The wife of President Juan Orlando Hernández traveled to the border port city of Corinto, north of the capital Tegucigalpa, to welcome the repatriated Honduran minors, who were detained while seeking family reunification with their parents in the United States.

The repatriated children were later sent to Honduras' Child and Family Institute in San Pedro Sula, the country's second largest city, from where they will be sent to their respective communities of origin.

Ana García heads a task force created by her husband, President Juan Orlando Hernández, to welcome back thousands of unaccompanied Honduran children repatriated from the U.S. or Mexico, where many end up in the hands of criminal gangs that kidnap them to demand huge cash rewards.

So far in 2014, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports over 47,000 unaccompanied children have been detained after crossing the border, almost double the number for all of 2013, almost five times the number from 2009.