Late last year, U.S. Border Patrol had nearly 250,000 encounters with illegal aliens crossing into the United States via the southern border, according to Pew Research Center. Since 2020, the monthly number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border has surpassed 200,000 on 10 separate occasions, Pew noted. The last time this threshold was reached was in March 2000.
Since President Joe Biden took office, more resources have been directed towards handling the southern border crisis, leaving other sectors nearly wide open.
This week, Fox News reported that the Swanton Sector that connects Vermont to Quebec has seen more apprehensions in the last fiscal year than the previous 13 years combined.
Reportedly, this sector has seen 15,000 apprehensions in the 10 months of fiscal year 2024. This is the largest volume ever recorded by the sector. This figure is over 14,000 more than what was recorded in fiscal year 2021.
Fox noted that illegal aliens from 85 different countries have attempted to illegally cross in this area (via Fox News):
While the southern border has received much of the attention, the report notes that the northern border has also reported a record number of illegal entries and apprehensions so far this fiscal year. In FY 2023, a record number of 190,000 migrants were apprehended at the U.S. border, while 162,865 have so far been apprehended at the border with Canada in the current fiscal year.
The report also noted that close to 1,100 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) have attempted to enter the U.S. from Canada between 2021 and 2023, making up a large percentage of the over 1,700 total KSTs that have been apprehended nationwide since FY 2021.
Last month, Townhall reported how the Biden administration unveiled a plan to expedite the processing of illegal aliens at the U.S.-Canada border in response to an uptick of crossings. This involved two changes to how the United States processes illegal immigrants under a “Safe Third Country” agreement with Canada.
In June, Townhall covered how illegal border crossings from Canada to the United States were escalating. One area where this issue was growing was Quebec and New York. In fact, the Roxham Road border crossing was closed for good in 2023 due to the overwhelming number of asylum seekers who illegally crossed there.
In late June, U.S. Border Patrol stopped a human smuggling operation on the St. Clair River, which separates Michigan and Ontario.
In July, Townhall covered how human smuggling became a primary focus for federal authorities in Washington state as illegal immigrant crossings continue to uptick.
Robert Hammer, Homeland Security Investigations special agent in charge, told Axios that with so much attention on the southern border, the “historic” amount of irregular activity at the northern border gets overlooked.