Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 29,000 migrants during the extended Christmas weekend. While most American families enjoyed the celebrations of Christmas with family and friends, Border Patrol agents stayed to their tasks of processing, transporting, caring for, and eventually releasing thousands of migrants pushed across the border by human smuggling cartels.

Border Patrol agents assigned to the nine southwest Border Patrol sectors apprehended at least 29,000 migrants who illegally crossed the border between ports of entry between December 22 and 25, according to unofficial Border Patrol reports obtained by Breitbart Texas. On Thursday, December 21, agents apprehended at least 9,000 more migrants. This brought the total for the last five days to at least 38,000 migrant apprehensions.

The numbers included in these reports are likely understating the true number of apprehensions as migrants who are kept camping in outdoor detention areas along the border’s edge are not counted until they are processed into Border Patrol shelters, law enforcement sources previously told Breitbart.

The Tucson Sector remained at the hot spot along the U.S.-Mexico border. Tucson agents apprehended at least 12,250 migrants during the five-day period. This was just slightly ahead of the nearly 12,000 migrants apprehended in the Del Rio Sector.

The massive swell of migrants crossing through Mexico and entering the United States forced officials in the Del Rio Sector to shut down operations in multiple Border Patrol stations and interior highway immigration checkpoints, Breitbart Texas’ Randy Clark reported.

“The move will leave more than ten thousand square miles within the sector without any Border Patrol presence,” Clark wrote. “In recent weeks, the Biden administration shuttered the Eagle Pass Bridge I Port of Entry and the railroad bridge linking Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras, Mexico, to reassign personnel to address the continuing migrant surge.”

“The cartels know that we have fewer agents on patrol during the holiday season, we heighten our alert during these times to combat this,” a source within U.S. Customs and Border Protection explained. “With no agents on patrol inland or on the immediate border, we are inviting them to move contraband or high-value targets at will, with no threat of apprehension.”

On the Friday before Christmas, CBP officials snuck out the Southwest Land Border Encounters report for November. The report revealed the continuing crisis conditions along the border as agents apprehended more than 191,000 migrants during the second month of the new FY24.

“By strategically holding the release of these numbers until the Friday before Christmas, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is unabashedly showing the full measure of his duplicity,” Chairman Green said in a written statement. “These numbers are so bad, he wants as few Americans to see them as possible.”

The number of apprehensions is up from October’s reported 188,780 migrants, bringing the total for the new FY24 to 379,893.

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In reaction to falling polling numbers relating to the Biden administration’s handling of border security and immigration policies, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas and Secretary of State Tony Blinken will travel to Mexico to “meet with President [Andres Manuel] Lopez Obrador and his team to discuss further actions that can be taken together to address current border challenges.” Breitbart reported that the U.S. delegation will also include White House Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall. U.S. border czar Vice President Kamala Harris, is not expected to attend the meetings.

President Obrador revealed he may be willing to make a deal to help the U.S. with the immigration crisis if the U.S. accepts the leftist dictators currently governing Venezuela and Cuba, according to a report by Reuters. The article states:

“We are going to help, as we always do,” López Obrador said. “Mexico is helping reach agreements with other countries, in this case Venezuela.”

“We also want something done about the [U.S.] differences with Cuba,” López Obrador said. “We have already proposed to President Biden that a U.S.-Cuba bilateral dialogue be opened.”

“That is what we are going to discuss, it is not just contention,” he said at his daily morning press briefing.

The current spike in migrant crossings continues as agents apprehended another 121,000 migrants in the first 15 days of December. This brought the Fiscal Year 24 total to more than 504,000 migrants in just over ten weeks.

Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. 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. He also serves as president of Blue Wonder Gun Care Products. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX.