White House homeland security adviser Tom Bossert compared the U.S.-Mexican border to a leaking boat on Sunday after President Trump Donald John TrumpBubba Wallace to be driver of Michael Jordan, Denny Hamlin NASCAR team Graham: GOP will confirm Trump's Supreme Court nominee before the election Southwest Airlines, unions call for six-month extension of government aid MORE ordered thousands of National Guard troops to the southern border.

"We’ve got a leaking boat on our border and we’re all quibbling with how much water’s in the boat and how fast we’re bailing it out. I think at this point the president’s been pretty clear. Enough is enough, fix the actual problem and stop that leak," Bossert said on ABC's "This Week."

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"I think the guard’s always been something that we’ve considered. And what we do is we look carefully at trend lines and so there’s been a little bit of misreporting on this. Let’s see if I can help with that. A lot of the reporting tends to suggest that because we’ve seen record lows over the last 40 years [on] an annual basis that that’s good enough," he continued.

Border crossings are on the rise this year after dropping to a historic low after President Trump first took office.

Trump announced last week that he was ordering thousands of troops to the border until his long-promised border wall can be built.

The memo authorizes the use of Title 32 and Defense Department dollars for up to 4,000 National Guard personnel to support the Department of Homeland Security’s “southern border security mission while under the command and control of their respective governors through September 30, 2018.”

Defense Secretary James Mattis James Norman MattisBiden courts veterans amid fallout from Trump military controversies Trump says he wanted to take out Syria's Assad but Mattis opposed it Gary Cohn: 'I haven't made up my mind' on vote for president in November MORE signed off on the request on Friday, which said troops will not partake in law enforcement activities, and does not detail how much the mission would cost.

Arizona and Texas announced they would begin sending troops to the border this weekend.