(NewsNation Now) — U.S. officials are still very much fighting a migrant surge at the southern border.

U.S. Border Patrol agents have counted more than 1.6 million people attempting to cross the border since February.

Officials were back at the border Tuesday, one day after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced state operations that will attempt to slow down the number of illegal border crossings.

On Monday, Texas created what Abbott is touting as “a steel wall along the southern border” using shipping containers placed along the Rio Grande in South Texas to keep out migrants and caravans from Mexico.

“Large shipping containers, resources & personnel are being used to protect communities & property owners,” Abbott tweeted last week. “Texas is securing the border.”

Behind the row of containers is a row of Texas Department of Public Safety state troopers and vehicles as a second line of defense to stop migrants from illegally crossing the river.

Abbott also announced that he would be deploying 10,000 state troopers and National Guard soldiers to the border to fortify it from more illegal crossings as part of Operation Lone Star,

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Florida) visited Arizona on Tuesday to tour the southern border there.

Scott’s visit comes just days after he sponsored a bill that would require the Department of Homeland Security to investigate the vetting process of migrants.

Scott placed direct blame on President Joe Biden for the surge that we’ve seen in the last year, saying, “With the way this is set up right now, why would you not want to be apprehended? I mean, you get taken, you get processed, you get sent someplace in the country, by the Biden administration. You get your food, water, clothing, you get all sorts of things.”

Just in the fiscal year ending in September, U.S. Border Patrol agents detained 1.7 million migrants. That is a record high since at least 1960. And the number for October alone was almost 165,000.

Biden hosted Mexico’s president just last week, but a top White House official said border talks really weren’t the focus of that summit.

Press secretary Jen Psaki said that getting to the root causes of migration, understanding why so many people are coming to the United States and figuring out how to reduce the number of people crossing illegally are top priorities for the White House.