By Katie Daviscourt – The Postmillennial
The United States’ northern border with Canada has seen a 550 percent increase in illegal immigrant crossings in the 2023 fiscal year, a crisis that sparked when President Biden took over the White House in 2021.
Border Patrol officials say that the majority of illegal immigrants entering through the northern border are coming from Mexico, India, Venezuela, Haiti, and Romania. They warn that human traffickers are taking advantage of the migrants at the hands of Biden’s open border policies.
The Daily Mail reports that there were 6,925 apprehensions at the Swanton sector in fiscal year 2023, which ended at the end of September, compared to 1,000 at the same sector the year prior. The Swanton sector covers New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont. This is a 550 percent increase.
Illegal crossings have increased throughout the entirety of the northern border. In 2023, there were 189,402 migrant encounters, compared to 109,535 in 2022. In 2021, there were 27,000 recorded migrant encounters.
Chief Border Patrol Agent Robert Garcia sounded the alarm earlier this year and asked CBP agents to volunteer to transfer up north.
Garcia warned that amid cold weather and perilous voyages, human traffickers are taking advantage of desperate asylum seekers, the outlet reports.
In October, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu announced the creation of the Northern Border Alliance Task Force to address the crisis, calling it a “national security risk.”
Sununu said his office secured $1.4 million from the state’s current budget that will go towards boosting state and local law enforcement patrols along the 58 miles of the border the state shares with Canada. The Republican governor explained that CBP agents have had encounters with individuals on “terrorist watch lists” and he won’t be taking any chances.
“Encounters with individuals on the terrorist watch list at the ports of entry on the northern border have doubled since 2017,” Sununu said. “There have been more apprehensions along our northern border in just this past year than in the last ten years combined.”
Furthermore, Gov. Sununu warned that the risks to national security “are becoming more and more obvious every day.” As a result, Sununu said, “It is made very clear to us that we do need more targeted resources. We need to provide an all-hands-on-deck approach.”
Gov. Sununu lambasted the Biden administration and said the White House has repeatedly denied the state’s requests for help.
In addition to Sununu sounding the alarm, Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy recently visited the northern border and showcased in a video how easy it is to illegally enter the United States from Canada. Ramaswamy insisted that the northern border also needs a wall.
As for the US-Southern border, there have been more than 2 million illegal crossings within the past year, with more than 6 million encounters since Joe Biden became president in 2021.