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On Monday, the largest group of asylum seekers ever to cross the US tunnel under the border wall near San Luis, Arizona, voluntarily converted to a customs and protection service borders, according to the agency.
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Migrants can be seen heading for border police officers by the hundreds, according to the video obtained by ABC News. According to CBP, smugglers have dug a series of seven holes a few meters long under the steel protective barrier. Hundreds passed under the wall and a smaller number passed through it.
The marks of sand and shoe claws on rusty steel were still present when ABC News visited the site Thursday.
Border patrol of the Yuma area The agency claims that 179 of the 376 people who crossed the threshold were children, including more than 30 unaccompanied minors – children under 18 years traveling alone. .
The total number of unauthorized crossings dropped from its peak in 2001, when CBP recorded about 1.6 million apprehensions, according to government statistics. However, the demography of these crossings has changed dramatically.
Parents with children now account for more than 80% of the total fears of people crossing the 3,000 km long border with Mexico. The vast majority of them, like the group near Yuma on Monday, are traveling immediately or are calling on border patrol agents to initiate the asylum process.
CBP Yuma's border chief, Anthony Porvaznik, said his unit needed better border gates, but more urgently, it needed funding to support these families. .
"The humanitarian problem is our number one challenge we have here in the Yuma area," Porvaznik said. "As I mentioned, 87% of those apprehended are unaccompanied family units and unaccompanied children."
Yuma Area Border Patrol The mass crossing this week took place in a sparsely populated stretch of the border – an old border barrier model stands at about 12 feet from the sandy soil. The enlarged agency had only three officers patrolling this part of the 26-mile long border.
It took hours to treat the families, most of whom were sent to the chronically overcrowded treatment center in Yuma.
"During my 30 years with the Border Patrol, I did not participate in the arrest of a group of 376 people," said Porvaznik. "It's really unheard of."
On Thursday, hundreds of asylum seekers were held in blocks of cinder blocks with thick glass windows overlooking a central pen where CBP officers used to treat and respond to humanitarian needs. Asylum seekers were separated into cells: fathers with sons, fathers with daughters, unaccompanied minors and mothers with children.
As in all these facilities, CBP stated that it was working to treat them as quickly as possible and to provide basic medical care. Nevertheless, prisoners eat, sleep and use the bathroom in the same room. Remnants of food mingled with silver rugs on the floor. In one cell, several boys had tossed the blankets in an improvised soccer ball.
The father says he saved about $ 5,000 to pay for a coyote to haul him quickly to the border. He left a wife and two younger girls in Guatemala. Next to them was a mother and two daughters traveling to Cincinnati, also from Guatemala. They also traveled by bus and the trip lasted about eight days.
Barely two days after the group passed the tunnel under the border wall at Yuma, the Border Patrol welcomed another large group of migrants to New Mexico. The group of 247 people, including unaccompanied minors, crossed near the port of entry of Antelope Wells and immediately surrendered to the authorities for treatment.
CBP stated that 24 major groups – at least 100 – have crossed the border near Lordsburg, New Mexico, since October 1, 2018.
Ignacio Torres and Mark Osborne of ABC News contributed to this report.
Editor's note: This article has been updated to indicate the Customs and Border Protection Service.
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