The U.S. Customs and Border Protection is deploying 150 Border Agents to help process a spike in immigrants who have been arrested after illegally entering the country.
Border Patrol agents from Arizona and California, among other places, will temporarily be reassigned to the Rio Grande Valley-area along the Texas-Mexico border, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Other agents, who are currently working another portion of the Texas border, will also join them.
The additional agents will help screen, classify, and process the undocumented immigrants who have been taken into custody there, according to officials. Many of the illegal immigrants are families and unaccompanied children.
Since 2014, the Rio Grande Valley has been the U.S. Region with the most illegal-immigrant arrests—many of whom are seeking asylum from drug-fueled violence south of the border, according to the Associated Press.
The AP reports that leaders in southern city of McAllen, TX, are struggling to provide services for the immigrants. October was the busiest month in two years for a church support center there, which offered more than 5,600 immigrants assistance.