More than 62,000 migrants evaded Border Patrol agents last month, Fox News reports.
Multiple Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources told Fox News the number was not included in the department's monthly statistics of encounters.
The sources added that there had been more than 300,000 "gotaways" — migrants not apprehended or who turned themselves in — since the fiscal year began Oct. 1.
Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott told Fox News that that there were approximately 400,000 gotaways in the entirety of the previous fiscal year.
Known gotaways are seen on cameras and sensors and via other means but there is no manpower to get to them.
Sources told Fox News that the actual number of gotaways likely was much higher because the numbers reflect only the ones known.
Between Oct 1-Feb. 28, there were 838,685 migrant encounters — an average of nearly 168,000, according to CBP statistics.
Title 42, which has allowed U.S. immigration authorities to quickly expel migrants and asylum seekers to guard against the spread of COVID-19, was used to expel more than half of the more than 164,000 migrants encountered in February, Fox News said.
The New York Times reported Monday that the Biden administration will start vaccinating undocumented migrants who lack proof of inoculation.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the administration was expected to end Title 42 by May 23.
Multiple Border Patrol officials told Fox News that ending Title 42 would lead to a "surge on top of a surge."
"We are expecting to get wrecked," one Border Patrol agent told Fox News.
Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told CNN late last month that he was preparing for as many as 8,000 people to be apprehended daily.
"[That number] will probably become the norm over the next 30 to 45 days," Ortiz told CNN, which reported that Border Patrol had arrested 940,000 migrants since Oct. 1, the beginning of the fiscal year.
Officials were scurrying to build more facilities and line up prison buses to handle the surge. Internal documents have shown estimates of how many people are within relatively close proximity to the southern border and might plan to migrate to the U.S., sources told CNN.
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