(NewsNation) —It has already been a record-setting year in the number of migrants reaching the southern U.S. border, and despite pleas from local officials and border patrol for assistance in mitigating the surge, the numbers continue to climb.
The numbers of migrants who have been able to evade agents at the border, also known as gotaways, is also rising. This year, 440,000 known gotaways have crossed the border into the U.S. At this time last year, there were 390,000.
Border officials have also encountered 50 people trying to sneak through the border who are on the U.S. terrorist watch list this calendar year.
Migration at the southern border has been a stiff point of contention for politicians at both the local and national levels, dividing members within their own parties.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has publicly clashed with President Joe Biden about the Biden administrations plan to end COVID-19 era immigration policy Title 42.
Title 42 allowed the U.S. government to turn migrants away at the border without allowing them to first seek asylum. A federal judge in Louisiana put a temporary stop to Biden’s plan to end Title 42.
Despite Title 42 remaining in place, however, border agents are still struggling to process the large number of migrants reaching the border.
In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is asking for a “strike force” grand jury to be formed to tackle the issue of human smuggling at the border. Smugglers have been netting thousands of dollars taking people across the border. The Mexican government recently captured a truck with 366 migrants from 16 countries inside.
The grand jury DeSantis is trying to form would investigate parents who use human smugglers to bring their unaccompanied children to live with them in Florida. It would also investigate local jurisdictions that refuse to honor a request to detain people in the country illegally if they have been arrested for a crime.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.