Largest group of asylum seekers yet tunnel under border wall

The largest single group of asylum seekers ever to cross into the US tunneled beneath the border wall near San Luis, Arizona, earlier this week before turning themselves in to the feds, a new report said Friday.

Smugglers dug seven holes a few feet long under the steel border fence there, and hundreds scrambled under the wall, according to Customs and Border Protection, ABC News reported.

The agency said 179 of the record 376 people who crossed under the fence were kids, including more than 30 who were unaccompanied.

While overall crossings are at a decades-long low, parents with children now make up about 87 percent of the people caught crossing the southern border. Most surrender to federal agents and ask for asylum.

CBP Yuma Border Sector Chief Anthony Porvaznik told the network his unit needs better border barriers but that more funding to provide for the migrant families was a higher priority.

“That’s our No. 1 challenge that we have here in the Yuma sector, is the humanitarian problem,” Porvaznik said.

“As I mentioned, 87 percent of the apprehensions here are family units and unaccompanied alien children.”

The mass crossing took place Monday in a desolate stretch of the border — where an old model of border barrier rises about 12 feet from the ground, according to ABC.

CBP had only three agents patrolling the 26-mile-long section of the border where the crossings took place.

“In my 30 years with the Border Patrol, I have not been part of arresting a group of 376 people,” Porvaznik said. “That’s really unheard of.”

The crossings came as President Trump is demanding $5.7 billion for his long-promised border wall with Mexico.

Democrats have refused, offering $1.3 billion for beefed-up security at the border but no money for Trump’s wall.

The stalemate has resulted in a partial government shutdown now in its 28th day with no end in sight, leaving 800,000 federal workers in limbo.

Trump, meanwhile, continued to press his case for a border wall on Twitter Friday morning, warning of another caravan of Central American asylum seekers.

“Another big Caravan heading our way. Very hard to stop without a Wall!” the commander-in-chief wrote.

“AMERICA FIRST!” he added later.

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