The US Department of Homeland Security announced this week that February was the busiest month for apprehensions at the US-Mexico border since April 2008, a staggering increase driven by Central American families.

In recent months, there has been an increase in how many people are apprehended at the border, but the February levels represent a departure from a decade of relatively low border apprehensions.

How many people arrived in February?

Border patrol apprehended 66,450 people at the south-west border. Another 9,650 people presented themselves at border checkpoints and were deemed inadmissible because they didn’t have proper entry documents. That’s more than 76,100 people total.

Who is crossing the border?

It is mostly families and unaccompanied children from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – Central America’s northern triangle.

In February, more than 90% of the people were from Guatemala and there was an unusual spike in Hondurans apprehended – from 10,047 in January to 17,523 in February.

Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan said at a press conference on Tuesday that people were mostly turning themselves in to officers.

Why are they crossing?

The northern triangle countries are beset by systemic corruption, organized crime and violence. They are also vulnerable to climate change, which experts say is exacerbating – and sometimes causing – other problems including poverty.

How does this compare with historical trends?

Even with this unusual increase, apprehensions levels are still well below the record highs of the 1990s and early 2000s.

In 2000, more than 1.6 million people were apprehended. In the two busiest months of 2008, March and April, more than 91,000 people arrived each month.

By the end of fiscal year 2009, the number of people apprehended had a significant drop-off to 556,401. The rates continued to fall with small rises in the ensuing 10 years that never surpassed half a million people.

How is the system coping?

The border infrastructure was built to respond to adult males traveling by themselves, not thousands of families. McAleenan said: “The system is well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point.”

Immigration advocates would make the case that funding for things such as aggressive immigration enforcement in the country’s interior and the wall – if funding is ever approved – could be reallocated to address humanitarian needs at the border. Even if that was to happen, it would not be immediate.

The Trump administration has also been criticized for focusing its resources on deterring people from coming instead of addressing the factors pushing people to flee their homes.

Where does the wall fit into this?

Donald Trump could use these numbers as ammunition in his campaign to expand the wall on the US-Mexico border, though experts predict a wall would do little to stem the flow. If funding for the wall was approved today and building started tomorrow, it could still take months for a structure to be erected.

