US Northern Border Illegal Migration Setting Records, Too

U.S. border issues are only getting more complex as the country's northern border sectors experience record migration.

One area of the U.S. northern border with Canada, the Swanton Sector, saw a 1,000% uptick in apprehensions in March, according to a preliminary Border Patrol report obtained by Breitbart Texas.

The unofficial report showed 700 migrants crossed the border in the sector that spans New Hampshire, Vermont, and part of New York. Just 61 illegal immigrant apprehensions took place in the same month a year ago.

There were also 350 more known got-aways, according to the report.

"Since March 10th, Swanton Sector #BorderPatrol Agents have encountered 28 children under the age of 14, the youngest only five months old," Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia tweeted in late March. "Illegal entry along the northern border is dangerous! Including this vulnerable population is reprehensible."

The Swanton Sector is up 67% since February, when 418 migrant apprehensions were reported.

"EB 2023@CBP encounter data shows a persistent upward trend in Swanton Sector — despite average temps below freezing & greater snowfall than Jan," Garcia tweeted just a day prior. "Dauntless in the face of all obstacles, our #BorderPatrol Agents stand against the breach of our 295 miles of border. They have my thanks."

Critics of the Biden administration's border policies have long decried the repurposing of Border Patrol officials from the northern border to the southern border amid a record-setting mass migration crisis.

There have been more than 2,600 Swanton Sector apprehensions thus far in fiscal year 2023, more than double the 2022 total of 1,065, and almost equal to the previous four years combined, according to the report.

Not since the full fiscal year 2004 have there been more apprehensions (2,701) than the first half of this current fiscal year.

Adding the known got-aways of more than 1,500, the total of known illegal crossings in the Swanton Sector is more than 4,200.

Canada is protesting the border woes, too, as dozens gathered in front of the Canadian public safety minister's office in Toronto on Tuesday demanding an end to an asylum treaty between Canada and the United States after eight people died by drowning as they tried to cross into the country.

The deaths come less than two weeks after the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) pact was amended, allowing refugee claimants to seek asylum in the first safe country they arrive in.

Protesters presented a petition to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, whose ministry is responsible for border patrol and policing in Canada.

Syed Hassan, the executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance, the group which organized the protest, said the petition had thousands of signatures calling for the end of STCA and demanding permanent resident status for all migrants.

"People are continuing to die. The denial of permanent residence status has become a death sentence in this country," Hassan added.

STCA, which took effect in 2004, aimed to control the migration of asylum seekers. Under the original agreement, asylum seekers trying to cross from the United States into Canada or vice versa at formal border crossings are turned back and told to apply for asylum in the first "safe" country they arrived in.

As refugees started to enter Canada from irregular crossings, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came under pressure to amend the agreement to cover the entire length of the U.S-Canada border.

"We have known for many, many years that creating this agreement will make our borders harder to cross and that people will still cross, but they will do it dangerously," said Shalili Konanur, a lawyer at the South Asian Legal Clinic of Ontario, who works with undocumented refugees.

"What more evidence do you need to present within days of strengthening the agreement? Eight people died. We know that this won't be the last time unless we do something about it," Konanur added.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

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