EL PASO — More than 40,000 parents and children — mostly from Guatemala — were detained at the southwest U.S. border in February, straining U.S. Customs and Border Protection's ability to care for immigrant families even as migrants are being apprehended in the highest numbers in more than a decade.

The agency said Tuesday that February was the busiest month since 2007 for overall apprehensions at the border, where 76,103 migrants were detained in the month. That's up from 58,207 in January, a more than 30 percent increase.

This year is on track to be one of the busiest in border apprehensions in more than a decade, with numbers likely to increase even more as warm weather arrives along with rising job demand, according to Customs and Border Protection.

"It should be very clear from these numbers that we 're facing alarming trends and a rising volume of people illegally crossing our southwest border, or arriving at our ports of entry without documents," the agency's commissioner, Kevin McAleenan, said Tuesday during a news conference in Washington. "The system is well beyond capacity and remains at the breaking point."

Pushed away from ports of entry because of new restrictions such as President Donald Trump's metering system, which requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while U.S. officials slowly process their cases, migrant families are arriving in larger groups, from the dozens to the hundreds, in rugged, remote areas on the edge of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona.

Since the new fiscal year began in October, at least 70 groups of 100 or more people have turned themselves in at Border Patrol facilities. By comparison, only 13 such groups arrived in the last fiscal year, and two in the year before.

Remote facilities, mostly hours away from cities, are unprepared to receive families. When the units were originally built in the 1980s and 1990s, they were designed to hold mostly single Mexican men, who were typically deported within hours.

"This significant change in the demographics of what we're seeing today is what presents us with a lot of challenges," said Brian Hastings, chief of operations for the Border Patrol.

"Regardless of any one preferred policy outcome, the status quo is unacceptable," McAleenan said. "It presents an urgent and increasing crisis that needs to be addressed."

McAleenan said migrant shelters in border communities, particularly in El Paso, are overwhelmed with the daily arrival of migrants, often by the hundreds. To alleviate some of the pressure, McAleenan said a new massive processing center in El Paso will be built to reduce the time families are spending in small holding cells after they're apprehended and before they are released to await court days in the heavily backlogged U.S. immigration courts.

The processing center, expected to cost $190 million, may hold up to 800 people at any time, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, has said.

1 / 3Brian Hastings, chief of operations for the border patrol, left, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan prepare to brief the media on migration statistics on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. McAleenan also discussed new medical procedures and plans for a new central processing center in El Paso.(Mark Wilson / Getty Images) 2 / 3Brian Hastings, chief of operations for the U.S. border patrol, briefs the media on migration statistics on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.(Mark Wilson / Getty Images) 3 / 3Hastings called the current situation "unsustainable" and added that without legal consequences at the border, the border patrol "has no reason to see the trend decrease."(Mark Wilson / Getty Images)

Hastings called the current migrant situation "unsustainable" and added that without legal consequences at the border, the Border Patrol "has no reason to see the trend decrease."

He also noted that intelligence shows that "drug cartels are using [migrant families] as cover and as a diversion" tactic, something that is "highly concerning for us." He said they have confirmed at least four cases in recent months.

El Paso-area facilities are likely to feel an even greater strain in the coming weeks. A U.S. intelligence official who spoke on the condition that he not be named said the large-scale migrant-smuggling operations near remote Antelope Wells, N.M. — where hundreds of migrants and their families were turning themselves in after crossing the border — are moving closer to Texas.

The change, the official said, is the result of nervous criminal groups becoming fearful that too much U.S. law enforcement attention has not been good for drug-trafficking business.

Most recently, groups of migrants have been arriving daily in the El Paso-Sunland Park, N.M., area in big numbers — by the dozens and hundreds. Late Tuesday, as many as 500 arrived in the western and eastern part of El Paso.

Asked at the news conference specifically what the priority should be — immigration reform vs. adding new physical barriers, such as Trump's border wall, McAleenan responded, "We need to do both. We're facing a security and humanitarian crisis," adding that families generally are turning themselves in, but noting that there's a need to fortify the border even more via high technology capabilities and physical barriers.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is expected to testify before Congress this week as the debate over funding the wall continues. Trump has declared a national emergency to shift federal funds around to spend billions on a wall, but the U.S. House has passed a resolution to overturn it and the Senate is expected to do so within days. Trump has vowed to veto the legislation to keep his emergency intact.

1 / 4A boy rides his bike along a razor-wire-covered border wall that separates Nogales, Ariz. from Nogales, Mexico on the other side Saturday, March 2, 2019. (Charlie Riedel / AP) 2 / 4A man in Nogales, Mexico is framed by slats in a border wall that separates it from Nogales, Ariz. Saturday, March 2, 2019. (Charlie Riedel / AP) 3 / 4Nogales, Mexico is framed by slats in a border wall that separates it from Nogales, Ariz. Saturday, March 2, 2019. (Charlie Riedel / AP) 4 / 4A razor-wire-covered border wall separates Nogalas, Mexico, in the distance, and Nogales, Ariz. Saturday, March 2, 2019. (Charlie Riedel / AP)

Critics maintain building a wall would do little to stop the flow of migrants because the current barriers — steel bollards and wire mesh — are already built on U.S. soil. Daily, migrants with children arrive and head for the fence and peek through, hands waving, to get the attention of Border Patrol agents to whom they can legally turn themselves in to file a credible fear asylum claim.

As winter ends, the surge in migrants arriving at the border is expected to grow even larger in the coming weeks, especially as job needs in agricultural, construction and the service industry increase.

"A wall makes no difference," said Adam Isacson, a border security expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, or WOLA. "I was just in San Diego, where's there's a double fence; many families were climbing over the first layer then waiting to be picked up in between the layers. And in Texas, of course, it's impossible to build a fence right up to the riverbank, so you're always a raft ride, or a wade near El Paso, to U.S. soil."

Moreover, Isacson said detaining children and babies, or sending thousands back to Mexico to await their chance to formally request asylum under the Remain in Mexico program is "morally unacceptable." Remain in Mexico is a pilot program in Tijuana that operates under a tacit agreement with the administration of Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and plans are being discussed to expand it all along the border.

Last December, two young Guatemalans, Jakelin Caal Maquin and Felipe Gomez Alonzo, died in separate incidents while in U.S. custody.

"A wall will result in more deaths at the border like those of Jakelin and Felipe," said Dylan Corbett, executive director of HOPE Border Institute in El Paso. "If we see migrant families coming to our border as an existential threat, we will fail to see this moment for what it is — a call to humanity, compassion and justice."

Theresa Brown, the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center's director of immigration policy, said the Trump administration and Congress need to address the root causes of migration: a lack of economic opportunity in Central America, for instance, and transnational criminal smuggling operations that "promote disinformation and encourage migration for financial gain."

Both sides, she added, need to "increase the capacity of our asylum system to process these requests rapidly to determine who is eligible and who is not, rapidly returning those who do not qualify, which will likely have a larger deterrent effect than any attempts at dissuasion," she said.

Already, a backlog of more than 800,000 pending cases in U.S. immigration courts has limited the government's ability to detain and deport migrants.

Between April and February, Hastings said, 2,400 fraudulent claims, including from people who said they were under age 18 or that they were related, were detected. Daily, Hastings said, 25 percent to 40 percent of Border Patrol manpower is dedicated to the care, transportation and humanitarian mission.

This fiscal year, Border Patrol agents are on track to make 31,000 medical referrals, Hastings said, up from 12,000 last year.

Bottom line, the federal officials said, is that the word is out: If you come with a child you can get into the U.S., and in record time. Migrants can and do use buses and simply ride through Mexico. Within four days to a week, they're generally making it to the border. It's a campaign pushed by savvy smugglers, who have quickly adapted to the latest cat-and-mouse games of Border Patrol officials.

"Word of mouth and social media quickly gets back to [Central America] that if you bring a child you will be successful," Hastings said.

"We know what is driving these trends," McAleenan added. "These increases in traffic are a direct response from smugglers and migrants to the vulnerabilities in our legal system."

He added: "The situation is not safe for migrants. It challenges our ability to provide humanitarian care. It contributes to dangerous conditions on our border, and enables smuggling while enriching criminals."