One sector on the often-overlooked northern border saw a 550% increase in migrant apprehensions last fiscal year, the latest statistic highlighting the increase in numbers that border officials are seeing.
Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said this week that agents have seen a 550% increase in apprehensions, with 6,925 apprehensions between October 2022 and the end of September.
He also said the migrants were arriving from 79 different countries, with the top five countries from which migrants originated being Mexico, India, Venezuela, Haiti and Romania.
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The sector, which covers the borders of New York, New Hampshire and Vermont with Canada, saw just over 1,000 Border Patrol apprehensions in all of FY 2022 and just 365 in FY 2021.
It’s part of a broader surge in migration at the northern and southern borders, although the numbers at the southern border vastly eclipse those seen at the northern border.
In the north, there were 189,402 migrant encounters in FY 23, but that’s a sharp increase from the 27,000 seen in FY 21 and 109,535 in FY22. At the southern border, there were more than 2.4 million.
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However, officials and lawmakers have noted that massive parts of the northern border, which is over 5,000 miles long and has only 115 ports of entry, are largely unstaffed compared to the southern border.
Migrants cross the northern border. (Customs and Border Protection)
Garcia had called for volunteers earlier this year as his sector saw spikes, particularly Mexican migrants with no legal documents.
“Due to the increased numbers, stations are task saturated with processing large groups, which has contributed to gotaway events, pedestrian and vehicle incursions,” he said in February.
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Republicans in Congress have also called for more attention to the border. Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who is co-chair of the Northern Border Security Caucus, has noted the risks of drugs and other threats that could come through the border.
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“You don’t have to worry about coming through a jungle, you just walk across,” he said in an interview with Fox News Digital last month. “There’s not a river that you have to get across, there’s really nothing there to keep people from coming over.”
The Biden administration has also acknowledged the northern border in its security plans. It announced a new border deal with Canada in the spring, meaning that migrants who attempt to cross illegally between ports of entry into either country will be returned. It updates a 2004 Safe Third Country Agreement, which did not deal with illegal immigration.
