In early June, border agents near San Diego did what they do a lot these days. They collared two previously deported sex criminals who had re-entered the United States illegally. Both men were convicted of sex crimes against children, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported. Yet the two are somewhat unusual in one respect: they are Mexican.

That’s unusual because nearly 70 percent of the illegal aliens crossing the Southwest border these days are Central Americans from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Border agents routinely catch previously deported sex fiends from those countries, too. Problem is, those agents are overwhelmed, and not just because previously deported criminals won’t stay where they belong.

They are overwhelmed because of the stupefying numbers. A tsunami of illegal aliens is swamping the border, CBP data show. The number so far since Oct. 1, 2018, the beginning of the fiscal year, is 593,507. That’s 2,452 illegal attempted crossings per day every day, as of this writing. In May, more than 4,429 hit the border each day. Let’s call this what it is: an invasion, Jean Raspail’s The Camp of the Saints come true.

The numbers don’t look any better broken down by the month: 132,887 in May, 99,304 in April, 92,840 in March. Monthly totals have more than doubled since October, when a mere 51,008 crossed.

In March, border officials declared the situation “unsustainable,” which means by now it’s worse than unsustainable. They also explained why so many are coming: They know that if they arrive with children and as “families,” border agents will release them to disappear into the country. Thus the numbers show something else: Most of the illegals are arriving in “family units,” some 332,981 so far, or 56.1 percent of the total.

Aaron Hull, chief patrol agent of U.S. Border Patrol’s El Paso Border Sector, explained the problem to Maria Bartiromo of Fox News in April. “Those people realize that [though] they’re being apprehended by us, they are still likely to be released on their own recognizance,” he said. “They’re not trying to get away,” Hull continued. “They know…they are going to be held in custody and then they’re going to be released and continue on to all parts of the United States.”

Hull also discussed the reason the illegals give for coming. It is not, as the leftist media have reported, because they fear persecution back home, or are fleeing violence.

“A lot of people refer to all of these family units as asylum seekers but that’s really not the case,” he said. “Most of those that we encounter, when they’re caught at this step in the process, they don’t indicate fear of return. They indicate they want better opportunity.”

That’s what illegals have repeatedly told reporters who covered the “caravans” that began late last year. The Institute for Defense Analyses together with the National Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events published a survey in September showing virtually no fear of persecution among illegals. Almost all left home for better economic opportunities. And the White House reported in January that 90 percent of asylum claims are denied; that is, they’re bogus. In other words, the illegal-alien caravans and bus convoys of 2018-19 were one long procession of those seeking jobs, welfare, free schools, and medical care.

But back to catch and release, which President Trump vowed to stop. It isn’t just inviting more illegals from Central America’s Northern Triangle to head north for the U.S. The policy also provides the incentive for smugglers to “rent” children for the purpose of making a better asylum claim when crossing the border. Smugglers then “recycle” these children back across the border again, according to border officials. Border agents have caught thousands of fake families, the Arizona Daily Star reported in May.

And smugglers are advertising trips north in Central American newspapers, The Daily Caller reported in April. “We read it on our newspapers,” a Guatemalan illegal told the website. “That’s why we’re here.”

Beyond the sheer numbers crossing the border, which likely carry along dangerous criminals who go undetected even if border agents detain them, is another threat: contagion. Hull said illegals are crossing the border with “contagious health conditions, things like chicken pox, scabies, tuberculosis, lice.” In November, when about 2,500 illegals were camped in Tijuana hoping to enter the U.S., Mexican officials reported that a third were sick. Officials found four with AIDS, three with tuberculosis, and four with chickenpox, Fox News reported. Others had skin infections. Yet our border authorities have dumped more than 200,000 illegals into communities across the U.S., Breitbart News reported in May.

Try to forget that unsettling datum. Ponder instead that from June through September 30, if the siege continues at the same rate of 2,452 per day, another 299,144 will cross the border. That makes a total for the 2019 fiscal year of nearly 1 million.

That’s about how many landed on the shores of France in Raspail’s disturbing novel. And as of now, this nation’s elites are no more disposed than his to halt the dispossession of the people who elected them.