More illegal immigrants were apprehended crossing the southern border in May than in any calendar month since 2006.

The surge in arrests was the “worst case scenario,” according to a top immigration analyst who has now believes more than 1 million illegal immigrants will enter the United States this year, reported the Washington Examiner.

On Wednesday, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported more than 144,000 apprehensions of illegal aliens in May. For the year, the figure is 676,315, a rise of 99 percent over this time last year.

Steven Kopits, the president of Princeton Policy Advisors which said the May numbers boosted his prediction by 10 percent, to 1,072,000.

In a report provided to the Examiner he said it was the highest total for the month of May since 2000 and the highest for any calendar month since March 2006.

“We had expected a major surge heading into the summer months, but this is above our worst case scenario,” he said.

He said his prediction for the year would be the highest for a full calendar year since 2005.

“No doubt President Trump had a sense of these numbers a few days ago, hence the Mexico tariff initiative. Notwithstanding, we expect a similarly bad June,” Kopits said.

Trump has threatened to impose 5 percent tariffs on all Mexican imports, beginning Monday, unless the Mexican government stops Central American migrants from coming to the U.S. border. The tariffs will increase 5 percentage points a month, until they reach 25 percent, he has warned.

‘One-year warning’

Trump’s tariff initiative followed his retreat in April from a threat to shut down the southern border to address the problem of illegal immigrants and illicit drugs.

Instead, he gave Mexico a “one-year warning” and said he would consider imposing auto tariffs on America’s southern neighbor.

The president’s top immigration officials have warned that the immigration system has reached a breaking point. With processing and holding centers overwhelmed, the United States has expanded its practice of “catch and release” of illegal immigrant families.

Over the past year, as President Trump has lobbied for funds to expand the border wall, top Democratic leaders have insisted there is no crisis at the border.

In April, however, former DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson told MSNBC that “100,000 migrants in a month is a crisis.”

“It’s a crisis in Central America. It’s a crisis for our border security personnel to try to deal with that. And it’s a crisis for the communities along the border that have to somehow absorb this population. … Now, the question becomes what to do about it. There are no quick fixes.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared at her weekly news conference May 17 that she and other Democrats had never said there was not a crisis at the border.

However, both she and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in their live televised response to Trump’s address on border security in January that the president had “manufactured a crisis.”

“Fox & Friends” presented a montage of Democrats such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Sens. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii and Kamala Harris of California using the same language. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a 2020 presidential candidate, referred to it as a “so-called crisis.”

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