A top United States general in charge of protecting the southern border says he’s been unable to combat the steady flow of illegal drugs, weapons and people from Central America, and is looking to Congress for urgent help.

Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly, commander of U.S. Southern Command, has asked Congress this year for more money, drones and ships for his mission – a request unlikely to be met. Since October, an influx of nearly 100,000 migrants has made the dangerous journey north from Latin America to the United States border. Most are children, and three-quarters of the unaccompanied minors have traveled thousands of miles from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

“In comparison to other global threats, the near collapse of societies in the hemisphere with the associated drug and [undocumented immigrant] flow are frequently viewed to be of low importance,” Kelly told Defense One. “Many argue these threats are not existential and do not challenge our national security. I disagree.”

In spring hearings before the Senate and House Armed Services Committees, Kelly said that budgets cuts are “severely degrading” the military’s ability to defend southern approaches to the U.S border. Last year, he said, his task force was unable to act on nearly 75 percent of illicit trafficking events. “I simply sit and watch it go by,” he said. But the potential threats are even greater. Kelly warned that neglect has created vulnerabilities that can be exploited by terrorist groups, describing a “crime-terror convergence” already seen in Lebanese Hezbollah’s involvement in the region.

“All this corruption and violence is directly or indirectly due to the insatiable U.S. demand for drugs, particularly cocaine, heroin and now methamphetamines,” Kelly told Defense One, “all of which are produced in Latin America and smuggled into the U.S. along an incredibly efficient network along which anything – hundreds of tons of drugs, people, terrorists, potentially weapons of mass destruction or children – can travel, so long as they can pay the fare."

With the Obama administration calling the flow of children in the U.S. a humanitarian crisis, even some of the most outspoken proponents of immigration reform in Congress are calling for a greater focus on security. At the same time, they demand a long-term strategy from the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development, which manages foreign aid and assistance.

“While the deployment of U.S. military assets and personnel rightfully prioritizes national security challenges in the Middle East and Central Asia, U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) is only sourced at five percent of the capacity it needs,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and other leading reform Democrats said in a statement last month, introducing a 20-point plan to address the crisis.

“This is a humanitarian and refugee crisis. It’s being caused in large measure by thousands in Central America who believe it is better to run for their lives and risk dying, than stay and die for sure,” Menendez said. “The bottom line is that we must attack this problem from a foreign policy perspective, a humanitarian perspective, a criminal perspective, immigration perspective, and a national security perspective.”

The Democratic coalition wants increased funding and resources for SOUTHCOM and the State Department’s Central American Regional Security Initiative. For fiscal 2015, the Obama administration requested $130 million for the program, which covers seven countries, but that ask is a decrease of $30 million from the current year, the senators noted. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has said an additional $161.5 million will be provided for CARSI programs to “respond to the region's most pressing security and governance challenges” – but the administration has made no mention of additional resources for the U.S. military.

President Obama’s request for foreign assistance to Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador totals more than $280 million in fiscal 2015. After Vice President Joe Biden met in Guatemala last month with leaders from that country, Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras to address the wave of children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, he announced $9.6 million in new assistance to Central American governments for repatriation of their citizens, improving security and preventing crime, as well as a series of USAID programs. Under USAID, $40 million dollars will go to Guatemala and $25 million to El Salvador. Under CARSI, an additional $18.5 million will go to Honduras.

Last fiscal year, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol apprehended more than 26,000 unaccompanied children at the Southern border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But so far this fiscal year, from last October to mid-June, that number has doubled to more than 52,000, an increase of 99 percent. Some 50,000 unaccompanied minors have been referred to the Department of Health and Human Services, spokesman Kenneth Wolfe told Defense One. Federal officials say the number of unaccompanied minors caught crossing the border this year could reach some 90,000. In response, Johnson has sent hundreds of additional border agents to the affected areas and enlisted the Coast Guard, which is loaning aircraft to help transport some of the immigrants.