VIDEO: Heavily armed gunmen escort migrants across US southern border

A shocking new video released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Tuesday afternoon shows an armed group of men escorting a mother and her school-age son into the United States across the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the video, four or five men are "in full tactical gear and masks" and "carrying long guns and AK-47 assault rifles," Fox News reported. They can be seen escorting a "Guatemalan woman and her 8-year-old child under a vehicle barrier," the outlet added.

According to Fox, the escorts then returned back across the border. Meanwhile, the woman and her child turned themselves into Border Patrol agents who were responding to the crossing.

On Tuesday afternoon, U.S. Customs and Border Protection posted a video of the incident to their social media pages.

#BorderPatrol cameras observed armed men escorting a mother and her 8-year-old son to the int’l boundary west of Lukeville, AZ. The armed men dropped off the pair in an area commonly used by smugglers to bring large groups of Central Americans into the country illegally. pic.twitter.com/xwJZZgvlbD

— CBP (@CBP) April 23, 2019

There is no pedestrian fence separating the U.S. and Mexico in the border crossing area, which borders a highway in Sonora, Mexico, the report added.

In a news release, CBP explained that "Border Patrol cameras observed several men armed with assault rifles escort a mother and child to the international boundary west of Lukeville," adding that the area is "commonly used by smugglers to bring massive numbers of Central Americans into the country illegally."

The video broke amid mounting concerns about the deteriorating security situation at the border, coupled with the ongoing collapse of political stability in Mexico, along with its government's failure to keep Mexican citizens safe from criminal cartels.

An unnamed Border Patrol agent told Fox News that the incident is "highly unusual" but also "highly concerning to the agency,"

"These armed individuals along the border represent an escalation of tactics. This is not mom and dad and kids deciding to head to the border," the Border Patrol agent added. "This is a, no kidding, orchestrated effort to bring individuals to the U.S. It is not just the numbers. It's who is running this enterprise."

Agents caught up to the woman and her son west of Lukeville, Arizona,according to KGUN-TV.

The development came just one day after President Donald Trump signed a new memorandum asking the secretary of state and secretary of Homeland Security for a plan to crack down on illegal immigration by further scrutinizing visa overstays.