Large migrant group crossings continue to mount in the Yuma Border Patrol Sector. As of Monday, sector officials held nearly 1,800 migrants in custody awaiting processing.

Yuma Sector Chief Patrol Agent Chris Clem tweeted that his agents continue to apprehend rising numbers of large migrant groups. Border Patrol defines a large group as more than 100 migrants crossing in one incident.

As of Monday morning, agents took nearly 1,800 migrants into custody, the chief stated. Border Patrol officials previously told Breitbart that cartel-connected human smugglers utilize the tactic of large-group crossings to tie up Border Patrol resources.

By pushing more than 100 migrants across at a time, the smugglers occupy all of the sector’s resources in a particular area for the time it takes to apprehend, transport, and process the migrants — especially with families and unaccompanied minors being involved. This enables the smugglers to flood the gap with drug shipments or the smuggling of “high-value” human cargo. These are migrants who pay a premium smuggling fee because of their criminal history or their country of origin making them “Special Interest Aliens” to Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations.

During the month of May, the most recent monthly statistics, Yuma Sector agents apprehended 12,014 migrants. This represents a 1,513 percent increase over the 745 migrants apprehended in May 2020.

These apprehensions included 6,381 family unit (8,887 percent increase), 626 Unaccompanied Minors (3,378 percent increase), and 5,007 Single Adults (663 percent increase).

During the first six months of Fiscal Year 21, Yuma Sector agents apprehended a total of 47,358 migrants — an increase of 739 percent over the previous year’s count.

These apprehensions included 21,419 family unit (755 percent increase), 3,029 Unaccompanied Minors (477 percent increase), and 22,910 Single Adults (776 percent increase).

The numbers for the month of June are expected to be released in the days ahead.

Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday-morning talk show. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.