By raft and on foot, migrants cross Rio Grande from Mexico to Texas

FILE PHOTO: Asylum seeking migrants, mostly from Venezuela and Cuba, wait to be transported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents after crossing the Rio Grande river into the U.S. from Mexico at Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., July 14, 2022. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File Photo

Beneath a blazing sun, a record number of migrants seeking to enter the United States are crossing the Mexican border. Some wade or swim through the waters of the Rio Grande into Texas. Smugglers ferry groups of others on rafts.

U.S. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, promised a more humane border policy than that of his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, but the increase in numbers has challenged U.S. law enforcement and drawn criticism from both political parties.

The U.S. Border Patrol made more than 1.6 million arrests through June in the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1, on pace to exceed the 1.7 million arrests during all of the last fiscal year, U.S. government data shows.

FILE PHOTO: The Buck Moon rises in the background as a smuggler, illuminated by his phone, takes rest on a sandbar between smuggling migrants across the Rio Bravo del Norte, also known as the Rio Grande river, into the United States from Ciudad Miguel Aleman, Mexico July 13, 2022. REUTERS/Adrees Latif/File Photo

(Photos by Go Nakamura in Eagle Pass, Texas, and Adrees Latif near Roma, Texas; Reporting by Sofia Ahmed in New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Howard Goller)

FILE PHOTO: Asylum seeking migrants, mostly from Venezuela and Cuba, wait to be transported by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents after crossing the Rio Grande river into the U.S. from Mexico at Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., July 14, 2022. REUTERS/Go Nakamura

FILE PHOTO: A migrant man, looking to surrender to immigration officials, rests while holding a child after crossing the Rio Grande river into the U.S. from Mexico in Roma Creek, Texas, U.S., July 12, 2022. REUTERS/Adrees Latif

FILE PHOTO: Asylum seeking migrants from Nicaragua pull a migrant child to pass under the border fence after crossing Rio Grande river into the U.S. from Mexico at Eagle Pass, Texas, U.S., July 14, 2022. REUTERS/Go Nakamura TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY/File Photo