The Joe Biden administration, almost immediately after cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline, put a stop to the construction of a border wall along the US/Mexico border..The wall was ordered to be built by former President Donald Trump to stem the flow of immigrants crossing illegally into California, Texas and Arizona..Since Biden took office, the flow has become a flood. .In the fiscal years of 2021 and 2022, the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency recorded 4,496,582 illegal immigrants who crossed the border seeking asylum. .The immigrants are processed, then set free to await their asylum hearings, spreading out across the US and not likely to show up at any hearings..They come, not just from Mexico, but through Mexico from Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Ecuador, Peru, even as far away as Africa, all fleeing economic and political turmoil in their home countries..And now, they are entering the US from Canada..CBP agents in New York, Vermont and New Hampshire apprehended more people illegally entering the US from Canada in the past three months than in the previous two years combined, authorities say..Officials in the states, which make up the federal agency’s eastern ‘Swanton Sector,’ saw a 743% increase in apprehensions and encounters between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 compared to the same period in 2021, sector chief, Robert Garcia said in a press release..The numbers don’t compare to the US southern border, but they are record numbers..In December, 441 people, the highest single month ever, were detained by the CBP at the Canadian border after flying to Canada from at least 19 countries, according to The Center Square. Fourteen others abandoned their journey to America and at least 135 foreign nationals evaded authorities and are now in the US illegally..The influx is also coming into the US from Manitoba into North Dakota, where it turned tragic..On Jan. 19 two adults, a teen and an infant from India, were found frozen to death in a vehicle 40-ft from the border in North Dakota..Temperatures in the area dropped to -25C during the group’s 11-hour trek near the Canadian border as they left a vehicle and tried to enter the US on foot, officials said..At the beginning of January, a Haitian man, Fritznel Richard, died just north of the Swanton Sector, having frozen to death while trying to reach his wife in the US..A Florida man was arrested for trying to smuggle them and a van full of people seeking to cross the border into the US..The CBP’s ‘Grand Forks Sector,’ which covers Minnesota and North Dakota, saw 90 apprehensions in the last three months of 2022, compared to just 80 during the entire year before, the Daily Mail reported Sunday..CBP said in a press release the number of people illegally entering the US from Canada in its Swanson Sector in the past three months was more than in the previous two years combined but did not provide specific numbers..Those trying to enter the US through Canada face a unique set of hazards..“Reckless endangerment: In freezing temperatures over uncertain terrain, families with children, from just a few months old, continue to illegally cross from Canada into the US,” said Garcia. “The risk to human lives, including Border Patrol agents, is increasing.”.As the crossings increased in upstate New York and New England, so did violence. Nine assaults were recorded in connection with illegal Canadian crossings from July to November, after authorities reported no attacks for the previous 27 months, CPB officials said..A Mexican national who flew to Canada to enter the US illegally from the north pleaded guilty to “unlawfully entering the United States and assaulting and resisting a federal agent” and now faces a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000, said Garcia..CBP has warned that the frozen northern border terrain, covered with snow and ice, makes “traversing unfamiliar territory perilous,” and officials have ended up “rendering potentially life-saving aid” to groups of people with small children trying to enter the US on foot..“Swanton Sector’s greatest concern in carrying out our mission of border security is the preservation of life, the lives of community residents we are sworn to protect, the lives of our Border Patrol Agents carrying out the mission day-in and day-out in the field, and the lives of the individuals, families, and children we are charged with apprehending as they attempt to circumvent legal processes for entry,” Garcia said.
