The number of migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Canada border, including upstate New York, has skyrocketed, increasing more than 50 times under the Biden-Harris administration.
The number of illegal crossings this year exceeds the total for the past 17 years.
Border Patrol agents in the Swanton area, which includes more than 320 miles of border between Maine and New York's St. Lawrence River, apprehended more than 19,000 illegal immigrants from 97 countries in fiscal year 2024, the Border Patrol said. said the person in charge. Robert Garcia with the department said this week.
The number of border crossings from Canada is lower than at the southern border, where 54,000 illegal border crossings were recorded in September alone. But they are increasing at an incredible pace.
In fiscal year 2021, only 365 illegal crossers were caught in this sector. The number will increase to more than 1,000 in 2022, and last year it reached nearly 7,000.
Border crossings have increased significantly in recent years across the northern border, with nearly 190,000 illegal immigrants caught crossing the border from Canada in 2023.
This is more than six times the number of people crossing illegally in 2021.
The 2024 fiscal year numbers are likely to be closer to 2023 levels.
One reason why the number of people crossing the northern border has soared recently while the number of people crossing the southern border has declined is that the 5,500-mile stretch is affected by the new Biden-Harris administration's asylum restrictions. That's not true.
The rule, similar to the Trump administration's policies, restricts illegal border crossers from accessing years-long asylum procedures.
The policy will remain in effect at the southern border, barring asylum access until the number of illegal immigrants falls below an average of 1,500 people per day per month.
“The executive order does not affect us,” a Border Patrol official on the northern border previously told the Post.
“People in family units are released and single people are sent to detention centers for sentencing.”
Earlier this year, residents in rural Swanton, Vermont, showed the Post how migrant smuggling was taking place on their property.
“I had Border Patrol agents on speed dial,” local Chris Feely, 52, said in February.
For the past three years, Feely has seen first-hand illegal crossings taking place from his vantage point in a game tree stand.
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He recalled being up in a tree one morning watching a startled deer pass by, then seeing two “Mexican” men carrying backpacks and walking sticks.
“He stopped right below me and was looking at his iPhone and following the path, so obviously someone was telling him which way to go,” Feeley said.
“I just freaked out and didn't know what to do. I just let them leave and gave them 10 minutes to go back to the barn to call Border Patrol.”
Feeley said border officials in the area advised him to start carrying a gun for his own protection.
The lack of a border wall on the northern border and limited law enforcement resources patrolling the vast swath of land is a barrier to migrants trying to sneak across, according to Border Patrol officials who spoke to the newspaper. It is said that there are few
While experiencing record border crossings from Mexico, agents were pulled from north to south to assist their counterparts in processing the border crossings of thousands of migrants each day.
