WASHINGTON -- Government agencies were ill-prepared to handle family separations that occurred due to the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy and their decisions probably led to more illegal border crossings, a federal report has found.

The Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General's report released Tuesday said that the administration’s choice to limit entrances at legal ports of entry due to a lack of resources “likely resulted in additional border crossings.” More illegal crossings meant more detentions and criminal prosecutions of migrants who may otherwise have sought asylum legally.

The DHS inspector general visited border enforcement sites in El Paso and McAllen to inform its laundry list of concerns about government agencies’ conduct during the arrests and detention of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally. Fifty Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were interviewed for the report.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate Minority Whip, called for further investigation and said the Trump administration created a “humanitarian crisis” and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is “well known for his anti-immigrant views.”

“The inspector general needs to get to the bottom of the Justice Department’s role in this disgraceful debacle, which led to thousands of children being separated from their parents, including at least 136 kids who have still not been reunited today,” Durbin said in a statement.

In a response to the report, DHS contended that the inspector general was conflating two separate policies of zero tolerance and limiting admission to ports of entry. The inspector general maintained that the policies' consequences overlapped.

The inspector general also found that Customs and Border Protection in Texas held significant numbers of children in short-term detention longer than the legal 72-hour limit. Many of these children were held in pens surrounded by chain-link fences without beds or showers, the Washington Post reported.

The Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector held at least 564 children, or 44 percent of children detained between May 5 and June 20, for longer than the legal limit. One child was held for 25 days.

The El Paso sector held at least 297 children, or 40 percent, longer than allowable limits. All other sectors held 13 percent of children longer than allowed.

DHS information technology systems were also found to be incompatible with those used by ICE and Health and Human Services staff, which led to relevant information being omitted as migrants were transferred between departments.

In some cases, inspectors found that Border Patrol agents made no effort to track or identify children who had not yet learned to talk who had been separated from their parents. Several parents the inspector general interviewed said they had not been notified that they would be separated from their children.

Texas Democrat Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio tweeted about the report.

“I’ve written several inquiries on family separation & have received incomplete or misleading responses to them, if at all. I call on colleagues across the aisle to exercise our oversight duty and figure out why this happened & take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Castro wrote.

I’ve written several inquiries on family separation & have received incomplete or misleading responses to them, if at all. I call on colleagues across the aisle to exercise our oversight duty and figure out why this happened & take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. (4/4) — Joaquin Castro (@JoaquinCastrotx) October 2, 2018

Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, did not mention the report directly, but he tweeted a link to a New York Times story about migrant children from across the country being transferred to a tent detention facility in Tornillo.

“As we make it harder for families in the U.S. to accept children who need a home, we are expanding a tent camp in the desert -- ensuring greater suffering and a greater stain on our conscience, on who we are as a country, as a people,” tweeted O'Rourke, who's running against Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

As we make it harder for families in the U.S. to accept children who need a home, we are expanding a tent camp in the desert -- ensuring greater suffering and a greater stain on our conscience, on who we are as a country, as a people. https://t.co/AcB4UHBcSp — Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 1, 2018

In June, a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop family separations and to reunite the more than 2,500 separated children with their parents. More than 100 children, classified as unaccompanied minors, are still in federal custody.

The report did not analyze the government’s subsequent efforts to reunify children and parents who had been separated under the zero-tolerance policy.

Correction, 11 a.m., Oct. 3: An earlier version of this story referred to Rep. Joaquin Castro as a potential presidential candidate. His twin brother, Julian Castro, is the potential candidate.