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By THE PULSE NEWS MEXICO STAFF

In the nearly six months since U.S. President Joe Biden took office, Mexico has increased its military presence along its northern and southern borders by 275 percent, the highest level ever, according to government sources.

According to a report by the Secretariat of National Defense (Sedena), a combination of 27,572 soldiers, sailors and national guardsmen were deployed at border checkpoints in May and June of this year, compared to just 7,348 officers in January, when Biden assumed the U.S. presidency.

This is the highest militarization ever of Mexico’s borders, higher than during the administration of former U.S. President Donald Trump.

In June 2019, after Trump agreed to withdraw his threat of steel tariffs, the Mexican government ordered operations with a presence of 25,500 military personnel along its northern and southern borders.

By October of that year, the figure had risen to 26,916 military agents for surveillance, checkpoints, rescue of migrants and as a “curtain” of checkpoints.

Despite the surge in Mexico’s military presence along the country’s borders, more than 1 million migrants have been arrested after illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since last October, according to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials, surpassing the 2019 border crisis tally with three months still left in the fiscal year.

In March, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas estimated that the United States was “on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than we have in the last 20 years.”

U.S. federal border officials have not yet released its June arrest numbers, but they have said encounters for the fiscal year have already hit 1 million when those are taken into account.