Majority of Migrants Arrested at Border Sunday Are Adult Men

The majority of the 42 migrants arrested Sunday as they attempted to cross the border illegally were adult men, according to the San Diego U.S. Customs and Border Protection chief.

“We ended up making about 42 arrests. Only eight of those were females, and there were only a few children involved. The vast majority of those were adult males,” sector chief patrol agent Rodney Scott told CNN Monday.

“To be completely frank, there were numerous people that actually made it across the border,” Scott continued. “We’re in the process of building a new border wall here but we don’t have it completed. There were some sections that had dilapidated border wall that was made out of scrap metal the military gave us. The group breached a couple sections of that, actually tore down one small section, and started to rush across. And that’s the time they started assaulting our agents, and we were able to hold them back using riot techniques.”

Border patrol agents were forced to shutter the San Ysidro port of entry near Tijuana on Sunday when a large group of migrants split off from a protest near the border and attempted to climb over barriers into the U.S. The migrants, some of whom hurled stone sand other projectiles at border patrol agents, were met with tear gas.

Mexico’s Interior Ministry initially estimated 500 migrants attempted to cross the border “violently” but Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost told Fox News on Monday that the number is closer to 1,000. Those migrants were part of a 6,000 person caravan that arrived in Tijuana ten days ago.

In a Monday morning tweet, President Trump demanded that Mexico deport those migrants arrested by Mexican authorities trying to cross the border Sunday, and threatened to permanently shutter the border if they fail to comply.