Southern border crisis helped spur massive spike in crossings from Canada as well: expert

Diverting resources to combat the flow of migrants at the southern border helped contribute to a surge in new crossings at the northern border, one expert argues.

"The southern border always gets the attention and, therefore, gets the resources and the money, and the northern border then has vast areas that are just wide open," Lora Ries, director of the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center, told Fox News Digital. "During Biden, because of the numbers of crossings on the southern border, they pull resources from the northern border to go deal with the southern border, leaving even fewer to guard the northern border."

The comments come after a report on CBS 19 detailed the plight of a northern border sector that has seen more apprehensions this fiscal year than the previous 13 combined. According to the report, the Swanton Border Sector has recorded roughly 15,000 apprehensions in the first 10 months of fiscal 2024, the largest volume ever recorded and more than 14,000 more than 2021, the first year President Biden was in office.

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But the sector, which covers 295 miles of the Canadian border and covers all of Vermont and parts of New York and New Hampshire, isn’t the only place the northern border has seen a surge in traffic, with the Canadian border overall setting a record of 190,000 encounters in fiscal 2023 and more than 162,000 so far in the current fiscal year.

The report also noted that roughly 1,100 known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) have been encountered at the northern border between 2021 and 2023, which is more than half of the more than 1,700 apprehended at the border nationwide.

According to Ries, the northern border naturally represents a challenge for the U.S. Border Patrol, which is more than double the number of miles as the southern border with Mexico. The northern border also presents unique challenges to agents, including maritime crossings throughout the Great Lakes region.

Those issues have only gotten more challenging under Biden, Ries argued, noting that the administration’s permissive immigration policies have offered an incentive to cross and have also led to a need for more resources to be pulled from the north to the Mexican border.

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"We’ve got [an] open border right now and the world knows they can get in," Ries said, noting that migrants from different places will use different crossings, depending on the situation.

"Smugglers adapt, traffickers adapt, and that’s why we’re seeing these numbers," Ries said.

According to the CBS 19 report, migrants have attempted to enter the country illegally via the northern border from 85 different countries, a number that is also an increase over recent years.

When reached for comment on the report by Fox News Digital on Tuesday, a White House spokesperson said Biden has "worked to find bipartisan solutions to secure our border and fix our broken immigration system. Congressional Republicans have failed to act, twice voting against the toughest and fairest bipartisan border security agreement in decades."

TEXAS RESIDENTS AFFECTED BY BORDER SECURITY UNDER BIDEN-HARRIS ADMIN EXPRESS FEAR OF FUTURE ATTACK

"President Biden announced actions in June that have significantly reduced encounters at the Southern border and the Department of Homeland Security recently announced changes designed to enhance our ability to remove individuals encountered along our Northern border," the spokesperson added.

But Ries expects numbers to continue to climb as long as Biden remains in office, noting that the administration’s decision to restart the controversial CHNV parole program that was previously shut down over concerns of fraud will only add to the burden faced at the northern border.

"If people are incentivized to try to get here now, while Biden is still in power, then they’re going to, and we're going to see numbers increase," Ries said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a follow-up request for comment.

Get the latest updates on the ongoing border crisis from the Fox News Digital immigration hub.