As of Thursday morning, 704 migrants, including unaccompanied children, crossed the southern border into Texas, the US Border Patrol said.
The group illegally flooded the Rio Grande River and headed to the ranch near Eagle Pass just after 3 a.m., the agency said.
Border Patrol agents arrested 535 Cubans, 74 Nicaraguans, 49 Colombians, 31 Dominicans, nine Peruvians, three Ecuadorians and three Mexicans.
“A comprehensive breakdown of the group revealed that there were 320 single men, 190 single women, 74 family units and 12 unaccompanied minors,” agency spokesman Dennis Smith said.
The size of the migrant hordes surprised border officials, who are used to “large groups” or more than 100 migrants.
The Border Patrol believes large groups are used by cartels to tie up agents and resources so criminal organizations can smuggle drugs or other migrants into the country.
“The logistics required to transport and process groups of this size continue to strain manpower and resources, as they are often found in devastated areas inaccessible to large vehicles,” the Border Patrol said. in an October press release.
Large migrant groups, once rare, have become more common in recent years, according to Border Patrol statistics.
Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley have cracked down on more than 130 large groups of people who entered the U.S. illegally last year, resulting in more than 21,000 immigration arrests.
More than 2 million immigrants crossed the US southern border in fiscal year 2022, an unprecedented record. This compares to just 1.7 million migrants in 2021. according to agency statistics.
Those numbers are expected to rise when Title 42, the Trump-era COVID policy used to deport nearly 40 percent of immigrants who entered the country illegally, expires on Dec. 21.
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