US President Joe Biden is facing growing pressure from politicians and human rights groups over his administration’s treatment of migrants seeking protection at the southern border with Mexico.
Border guards arrested over 1.7 million migrants this fiscal year, the Washington Post reported citing a US government source familiar with the numbers.
The figures that apply for the 2021 fiscal year that ended in September, soared to the highest levels ever recorded, according to unpublished US Customs and Border Protection data seen by the post.
During July and August, border guards detained more than 200,000 migrants trying to cross the border into the country.
The latest figures increased pressure on the Biden administration, which reversed many of the anti-immigration policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.
Biden, who had promised to put in place a more “humane” approach to immigration policy, also stands accused of inciting a chaotic migrant rush on the border with Mexico.
His policies led to an influx of refugees and migrant children from South and Central America to the southern US border in recent months.
To tackle the issue at the border, he recently resumed another controversial Trump-era program requiring asylum seekers to wait in Mexico, while their cases are processed in the United States.
The Democratic presided condemned the harsh immigration agenda as “inhumane” and suspended it on his first day in office.
The latest program left tens of thousands of migrants stranded in the Mexican city of Tapachula. which rights activists describe as a dead end for people who are waiting to get permission to continue their journey into the US.
Rights activist Luis Garcia of the Center for Human Dignification previously called the city "the largest immigration prison in the Americas."