The Biden-Harris administration has repeatedly touted its success in easing the crisis at the southern border, but has failed to mention that encounters with illegal immigrants at the northern border have soared to levels that exceed those of the past three fiscal years combined.
President Joe Biden Signed In June, the Biden administration issued an executive order to stem the flow of illegal immigrants at the southern border, including raising asylum standards and reducing the number of immigrants seeking refuge. Declared Actions success While the number of encounters with illegal immigrants at the southern border has declined in recent months, little attention has been paid to the northern border, which has seen a surge in illegal immigration this fiscal year and faces many challenges that set it apart from the southern border. (Related article: Panama arrests illegal immigrants bound for the US, deports them and arrests terrorism suspects)
“We expect that while numbers at the southern border may be declining, people's desire to come here will remain the same,” Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “What applies to the southern border doesn't necessarily apply to the northern border, so we could definitely see more people coming to the northern border.”
U.S. Border Patrol agents patrol near the U.S.-Canada border (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
According to Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 3,037 illegal immigrants were encountered at the northern border in July, up 228 percent from 926 in January. dataThis is also a staggering 1,033% increase from the 268 cases in July 2022. There have been a total of 19,498 encounters with illegal immigrants so far in fiscal year 2024, more than the previous three fiscal years combined.
Additionally, CBP data shows that more than 15,000 of the migrants encountered at the northern border are single adults.
Terrorists and individuals associated with terrorism also continue to attempt to cross the northern border. Approximately 283 migrants have been subjected to terrorist screening. Dataset So far in fiscal year 2024, 281 TSDS migrants have been apprehended at the northern border, including at legal ports of entry. A total of 487 TSDS migrants have been apprehended in all of fiscal year 2023, nearly double the number encountered by TSDS at the southern border.
Authorities have arrested people from dozens of countries, including Venezuela, India, Bangladesh and Mexico. According to To CBS News.
“This was flooding like we've never seen before. It was sudden, we didn't expect it, and it hit us really hard,” Eric LaVallee, a Border Patrol agent in charge of overseeing the U.S. Border Patrol station in Beecher Falls, Vermont, told CBS in August.
Canadian police officers patrol the U.S.-Canada border. (Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
There may be a variety of factors that contribute to the rate of illegal immigration in the north. Until recently, Canada had a law that allowed foreigners to enter the country without a travel visa and then travel south to apply for asylum at the US border. Changed The law went into effect in February and now requires visas for Mexicans and other foreigners entering the country.
Migrants can also find ways to cross the northern border, which is thousands of miles larger than the southern border and lacks the physical barriers and fences that exist on the southern border.
“You don't see as many people here seeking asylum or hoping to get caught. Most of the people you see here are trying to find that gap, that weakness, and get into the United States without being detected,” Lavalle told CBS.
DCNF previously learned that the Border Patrol Coalition was concerned as early as mid-2023 that the expiration of the Trump administration's migrant expulsion policy, which ended last May, could lead to a surge in illegal immigration along the northern border. Camarota said the northern border has not historically been a hotspot for illegal immigration, so what makes things even more difficult is that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and CBP do not have the same level of resources at the northern border as they do at the typically more problematic southern border.
“The number of agents, the cameras and tracking devices, the overall infrastructure is far greater on the southern border than on the northern border,” Camarota told DCNF.
To address a surge in migrants at the northern border, the Biden administration plans to speed up processing of asylum claims by requiring migrants to have their paperwork ready immediately and reducing the time they spend with lawyers, according to internal documents. Reviewed According to CBS , in theory, doing so would allow Border Patrol agents to more quickly determine who is eligible for asylum and who should be denied.
DHS and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
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