Homeland Security reportedly paying undercover informants inside migrant caravan

The Department of Homeland Security is paying undercover informants inside the migrant caravan headed to the southern border, two DHS officials told NBC News on Tuesday.

There are about 4,000 migrants in the caravan, most of them from Central America, and to communicate, they are using WhatsApp to text. DHS personnel are monitoring those messages, the officials said, as well as working with the Mexican government to keep track of the size of the caravan and any possible security threats.

On Monday, DHS announced that on Sunday night, it had gathered intelligence indicating that some migrants planned on running through the lanes at the border crossing near San Diego. The northbound lanes were closed for three hours, and no migrants attempted to rush through.

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It's not known how much the Department of Homeland Security is spending on the informants. In a statement, DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman told NBC News the department has "an obligation to ensure we know who is crossing our borders, to protect against threats to the homeland, and any indication to the contrary is misinformed."