Washington (CNN) Border Patrol agents arrested 16,658 family members in September, marking the highest such total for any month, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The Post report cited unpublished numbers from the Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with enforcement of immigration laws and border security. The report said the September total was an 80% increase since July and that the number of migrant parents entering the US with children had reached record levels over the past three months.

The report noted, however, that while the overall total number of arrests along the US-Mexico border -- at 396,579 people -- was higher relative to last year, the total was nowhere near highs seen in the early 2000s.

The spike in family crossings has followed Trump's move in June to reverse his administration's policy that led to family separations. The widely criticized separations themselves followed an uptick in statistics for border crossings, and the new report on the surge in families entering the US comes just weeks before the midterm elections, which Trump has tried to make in part a referendum on immigration.

Trump said in a recent interview that the administration was "looking at a lot of things" in regard to immigration and declined to give a straight answer on whether he planned to renew family separations.

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