The United States is encountering a caravan of mostly Central American migrants to the country every week, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials note.

During a hearing before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, U.S. Border Patrol Rio Grande Valley Sector Chief Rodolfo Karisch told lawmakers illegal immigration levels are currently so high that the average number of border crossers and illegal aliens arriving every week — at the Rio Grande Valley Sector, alone — is equivalent to the size of a migrant caravan.

“Much media attention has focused on caravans from Central America but the fact is that the [Rio Grande Valley Sector] is receiving caravan-equivalent numbers of migrants every seven days,” Karisch said.

Karisch detailed how the Rio Grande Valley Sector, alone, is set to far outpace illegal immigration levels from previous years:

To put things into perspective, last year agents in the [Rio Grande Valley Sector] made 162,000 apprehensions. We’re already at 147,000. At this pace, in my sector alone, we will have more than 260,000 apprehensions by the end of the fiscal year. [Emphasis added]

On average, we apprehend more than 1,000 people illegally crossing the border every day. That’s roughly the capacity of 17 commercial buses. Last week, agents in my sector apprehended 1,766 people in a single 24-hour period. We expect these numbers to continue to climb as we enter the summer months, which will undoubtedly place both migrants and our Border Patrol agents at significant risk. [Emphasis added]

Karisch hit back at some Republican and mostly all Democrat lawmakers who have claimed that there is no crisis occurring at the southern border in terms of illegal immigration and asylum fraud.

“In my 30 years as an agent, I have never witnessed the conditions we are currently facing on the southwest border,” Karisch said. “This is not a manufactured crisis created by those of us who live and work in the border area. Border Patrol continues to apprehend record numbers who purposefully violate U.S. immigration laws.”

As Breitbart News most recently reported, more than 92,000 border crossers and illegal aliens were apprehended at the southern border last month. In this fiscal year, alone, federal immigration officials have encountered more than 385,000 border crossers and illegal aliens at the U.S.-Mexico border.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.