So much of the attention of the migrant crisis has been paid to the U.S. southern border with Mexico, but migrants are also coming into America through its northern border with Canada, too.
Newly released federal data shows that encounters with illegal immigrants at the northern border increased roughly 36% during the month of July.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that there were 1,154 total encounters with illegal migrants at the northern border during July. That was a large increase from the 848 total encounters at the northern border that happened in June.
Most of those encounters were with people who came from Latin American countries, showing that illegal migrants are trying everything they can to get into the U.S.
During the entire 2021 fiscal year, there were only 916 encounters recorded with illegal migrants at the U.S. northern border. The next year, though, those numbers exploded, all the way to 2,238 during the 2022 fiscal year.
From October 2022 through July 2023, there have been 7,633 total encounters with illegal migrants at the U.S. northern border.
In a recent statement, the president of the National Border Patrol Council for the Swanton Sector, Sean Walsh, said Border Patrol agents in the region have become “overwhelmed with the amount of work that they have to do. The priority is the southern border, so the majority of the resources are diverted.”
The Swanton Border Patrol Sector spans across the New York, Vermont and New Hampshire borders with Canada.
The problem has gotten so bad in New Hampshire that Republican Governor Chris Sununu has called for a new congressional delegation to be created that would help to secure the Swanton Sector.
Since President Joe Biden has entered the White House, border crossings by illegal migrants have surged exponentially. Just since 2021, there have been roughly 1.5 million “gotaways” recorded for illegal migrants. During 2018, 2019 and 2020 combined – while former President Donald Trump was in the White House – there were a total of 415,000 “gotaways” recorded.
Data also shows that illegal immigration has increased 1,000% from various countries, including the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and China.
While the Biden administration has placed most of its additional resources to the southern border, many northern regions are struggling to manage how many more illegal foreign nationals have come to their areas.
Cities such as New York and Chicago, for instance, have been scrambling to handle all the new migrants coming to their region. Chicago recently passed legislation that allocated $51 million to provide housing and food for the illegal migrants. New York, meanwhile, is working with 50 different places of worship to try to house all the illegal migrants.
New York City also recently proposed turning a former nursing home building into a migrant housing center, but that plan was vehemently protested by residents of the city.
Overall, this just emphasizes how bad of a job the Biden administration has done at handling the migrant crisis – both at the southern border and the northern border.
