‘AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE’

Border Patrol agents rescued a family trying to enter Texas by crossing the Rio Grande, saving adults and several children from the river.

Photos taken from the Mexican side of the river in the town of Piedras Negras show agents in an airboat hauling children (right) and two adults aboard after they were nearly swept away by the swift currents.

The desperate family, believed to be from Honduras, was then taken into custody Sunday and given medical treatment.

Meanwhile, border officials said they saw an abrupt drop-off in illegal crossings during the holiday season — but the number of migrants arriving in family groups has hit record levels since then.

During the first week of January, when Christmas was still being celebrated in Mexico and Central America, the number of migrants detained by agents fell to about 200 on some days, according to Customs and Border Protection data. But by mid-January, the number of family members arriving jumped to as high as 1,400 a day.

And smugglers began bringing groups of 300 or more parents and children to border crossings in Arizona and New Mexico.

A CBP official told reporters Friday that about 75 percent of the family members detained in January arrived during the sec- ond half of the month. Overall, CBP carried out 58,207 arrests and detentions in January, down 4 percent over December.

Democrats want to cut the current number of beds ICE uses for immigrants here illegally from 40,520 to 35,520. They had also proposed capping at 16,500 the number of illegal immigrants caught within the United States, a move they argueed would force ICE to focus on detaining only dangerous criminals. They yielded on that, though, in talks Monday night to avoid a government shutdown.

Matt Albence, the acting deputy director of ICE, said earlier Monday that all of the roughly 20,000 to 22,000 illegal immigrants arrested in the interior who are being detained are classified as criminals because they are undocumented.

He was asked several times what percentage of those detained had been convicted of a violent crime, but did not provide a number.