Twelve migrants were arrested this month after illegally entering the United States in northern Minnesota in an apparent human smuggling attempt.
Minneapolis-based outlet KARE 11 reported that the migrants, who were from Ireland and Great Britain, attempted to enter the U.S. over the course of two days in September. Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement reportedly stopped the migrants.
According to a Border Patrol press release, on Sept. 25, a Border Patrol agent was notified that two vehicles made unlawful entry into the states near Roseau, Minnesota. The border patrol agent caught up to one of the vehicles where he determined that one of the passengers was a citizen of Great Britain and the other three were citizens of Ireland. All four were unlawfully in the United States.
The following day, a Border Patrol agent tracked down the second vehicle in Bemidji, Minnesota. The vehicle was unoccupied. The agent spoke to an employee at a nearby hotel who said that a couple had checked in and left shortly before the agent arrived. The agent located the couple and a total of eight migrants from Ireland and Great Britain illegally in the United States.
Reports late last month suggested that the crisis at the southern border was creating issues at the U.S.-Canada border. The Daily Caller reported that Border Patrol agents stationed at the northern border were being pulled to offer support at the southern border, making it more prone to illegal immigration.
“This domino effect all starts on the southwest, but then the effects are felt everywhere because we have to use resources to deal with what’s taking place down south, and when you do that, then of course, you leave yourself wide open in other areas, and that’s what we’re seeing on the North right now,” National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told the Caller, adding that, “everybody thinks that the issue is just the southwest border. It’s not.”
Reportedly, authorities encountered just over 96,000 migrants at the northern border between October 2021 and August 22. During the previous fiscal year, agents encountered around 21,000.
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