Now they're coming from CANADA
By Harriet Alexander For Dailymail.com 29 January 2023
(Click Title URL to view Pictures-Graphs)
Northern border sees 743% spike in illegal migrants trying to cross in a year due to 'easier entry than Mexico' - as cops release eerie images of asylum seekers trudging through 12F snow
Between October 1 and December 31, the Border Patrol's Swanton Sector - covering Vermont and New Hampshire - saw a surge in migrant encounters
Agents reported a 743 percent increase in apprehensions and encounters compared to the same period the year prior
Border Patrol officials say they are worried that migrants are unaware of how cold it can get, and say people traffickers are exploiting their desperation
Border Patrol working in the north of the US have reported a 743 percent rise in migrant encounters compared to the same period a year ago.
Robert Garcia, the chief patrol agent for the Swanton Sector - which covers Vermont, New York and New Hampshire - said he was troubled by the increasing popularity of the people-smuggling route.
He warned traffickers are exploiting desperate asylum seekers with potentially lethal consequences, amid freezing temperatures and dangerous passages.
Meanwhile the Grand Forks sector, which covers Minnesota and North Dakota, has reported 90 apprehensions in the three months since October 1.
The figure is more than for the whole of the 2022 fiscal year, when 80 were apprehended between September 30, 2021 and October 1, 2022.
It comes as a surprise as officials focus on clogging the southern border, which has reached crisis point as thousands migrants seek entry from Mexico.
The deadly consequences were laid bare a year ago when an Indian family of four was found dead just north of the Grand Forks sector.
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.
Fritznel Richard, from Haiti, was found dead in January just north of the border and north of the Swanton Sector, trying to rejoin his wife in the U.S.
'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,' said Garcia.
'Unfortunately, the transnational criminal organizations that stand to profit from the increased flow of human traffic care only about profits and have no concern for the welfare of those whose plight they seek to exploit for financial gain.'
Border Patrol said the number of migrants encountered in the sector during the 2023 fiscal year - which began in October - had already surpassed the 12 months of 2022's fiscal year. In December, a record 441 people were apprehended in the sector.
The latest data 'represent a sustained increase in illegal border crossings as we head into the harshest winter months,' they said.
Overnight temperatures in the zone regularly drop to 12F, and have dropped below zero in previously years.
'Unpredictable storm fronts bring ice and significant snow accumulation throughout the extended winter season,' the Border Patrol warned.
'These geographic and weather features can make traversing unfamiliar territory perilous.
'Additionally, the risk of hypothermia from sustained or even brief outdoor exposure to near-freezing temperatures in wet or windy conditions is significant.'
Garcia tweeted: 'In less than four months, Swanton Sector's apprehensions have surpassed the COMBINED two prior years (FY2021-2022).
Kathryn Siemer, acting patrol agent in charge of the station in Pembina, North Dakota - one of seven stations in the Grand Forks sector - said the sharp spike in encounters was due in part to Canada loosening its COVID restrictions.
Migrants have been able to make their way to Canada, and, if unsatisfied by their life there, try their luck in the US.
Another factor driving the increase is Canada placing increasing barriers on migrants, said Frantz André, an immigration consultant who runs an organization that helps asylum seekers.
He told CBC migrants believe they may have better chances of working without papers in the US.
Siemer told Global News she remained haunted by the thought of the Indian family of four, who died north of her sector last year.
The parents and two children trudged through waist-deep snow in a blizzard for 11 hours before they perished.
Jagdish Patel, 39 and Vaishailben Patel, 37 were found dead with their children Vihangi, 11 and Dharkmik, three, in a field north of the US border on January 19, 2022, as temperatures plummeted to as low as -40F.
Steve Shand, 57, from Deltona, Florida has been charged with human smuggling and an investigation into the family's deaths continues.
On the southern border, meanwhile, the border city of Yuma, Arizona, says it is is at breaking point - with the unprecedented flow of migrants leaving the community at the brink of collapse and hospitals and food banks overloaded.
Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines criticized the Biden administration for its handling of the border crisis and said his county will crumble as it can't support the arrival of more migrants.
Customs and Border officials say some five million migrants have crossed over the U.S. southern border since January 2021 when the Biden administration took over.
After Yuma County's Border Patrol saw a 171 percent increase in migrant crossings between 2021 and 2022, Lines warned that the situation will only get worse.
The family, originally from Gujarat, is believed to have made their way into Manitoba province from Toronto, where they initially entered Canada on January 12, 2022.
'Policies need to be changed when you see an unprecedented amount of people coming across the border that even supersedes what we saw under any of the other presidents for the past 30 years,' he told Fox News.
He called the surging increase in crossings 'ridiculous'.
'They're coming because they said that Biden told them to come, that we have an open border.'
Yuma is known as the 'sunniest city on Earth', but over recent years it has become known as the US' hotspot for migrant crossings that has stretched its Border Control to the limit.
Facilities along the border are being pushed to breaking point due to the increasing migrant flow, with residents reportedly unable to access the only hospital in the city.
Migrants are coming from Central America in hope of a better life for them and their families, but locals and critics of the current immigration policy view the current numbers as unsustainable.
Most of the migrants are drawn to the area by the relative ease of crossing the border, officials say.
According to Yuma Mayor Douglas Nicholls, there are 50 breaks in the border wall along the 126-mile Yuma sector, including the infamous 'Gap'.
Huge container-sized gaps in the 30ft border wall allow migrants to walk right through, aided by a thinly-spread Border Patrol.
Construction is currently underway to fill some of the gaps.
To add to the surge, Fox News reported that their sources confirmed 1.2million illegal migrants had escaped the Border Patrol force since January 2021.
Border counties like Yuma are trying to balance the needs of residents with the migrants queueing
A strain has also been put on the city when it comes to food, with migrants walking across crop fields risking a pillar of the community's local economy.
Yuma is the winter lettuce capital of the US due to its famed all-year-round sun. It produces 93 percent of the country's lettuce during the winter months.
Local farmer Alex Muller told Fox News: 'Our fields are monitored and audited and tested for different pathogens. You can't have people walking through the field.'
County Supervisor Lines called on the Biden administration to act to relieve the pressure on border counties, and to visit Yuma to witness the strain that has been placed on the community.
'Please come and see for yourself,' Lines said. 'I've invited them several times, and I would invite them again right now,' he added.
A bipartisan delegate from Washington DC, led by Senators Kyrsten Sinema and John Cornyn visited Yuma earlier this month. But officials complained that they saw a 'sanitized' version of the border crisis.
Biden's migration headache EXPLODES: a record 242 million people across Latin America now want to leave, many eyeing the US, as border crisis intensifies
Share of would-be migrants jumped from 18 to 37 percent this past decade
Latin America now on par with sub-Saharan Africa for numbers seeking an exit
Survey comes after record 251,487 encounters at southern border in December
The number of people in Latin America and the Caribbean who wish to migrate has jumped this past decade to 242 million, many eyeing the US, heightening fears about the border crisis.
In 2011, only 18 percent of people in Latin America and the Caribbean wanted to permanently leave their homes. By 2021, that had risen to 37 percent of the region's 655 million people, Gallup polling shows.
The desire to migrate rose faster in South America than anywhere else in the world. By the end of 2021, the share of Latinos wishing to migrate was on par with those in poverty-wracked sub-Saharan Africa.
In some South American nations — Honduras, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic — as much as half of the total population expressed a desire to move and live abroad permanently.
The survey comes amid record numbers of migrants trying to enter the US irregularly from Mexico, with Republicans criticizing President Joe Biden, a Democrat, over what they call his 'loose' or 'open' border.
Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a right-leaning advocacy group, said the survey revealed 'enormous pent-up demand' to migrate north to the US.
'We can see how President Biden has created a dangerous and volatile situation as every month, millions more formulate the intentions and plans to try to move,' Stein told DailyMail.com.
Migrants come from South America and the Caribbean in search of a better life for them and their families. Many are fleeing corrupt and inept leftist governments in such nations as Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
But border locals and critics of the immigration policy view the current numbers as unsustainable and balk at the prospect of hundreds of millions more also laying plans to head north.
Globally, the desire to migrate has reached 'decade-high levels' in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia and other regions, said Gallup, which polled 127,000 people aged 15 and older across 122 countries last year.
Still, not everyone with a desire to migrate is able to do so, researchers added.
The US remains the favored destination for the world's migrants, though the share eyeing America has dropped slightly to 18 percent this past decade. Canada, Germany, Spain and France round out the top five destinations.
In previous surveys, Gallup has found that America was the favored end point for more than a third of Latin America and the Caribbean's would-be migrants.
The survey was released on Tuesday amid a surge of Cubans and Haitians traversing the Caribbean by boat to reach Florida's shores, and record flows of people trying to cross the southwestern border.
The border city of Yuma, Arizona, is at breaking point with the unprecedented flow of migrants leaving the community at the brink of collapse and hospitals and food banks overloaded, local officials say.
Yuma County Supervisor Jonathan Lines has slammed the Biden administration for its handling of the border crisis and said his county will crumble as it can't support the cascading flow of migrants.
Customs and Border officials say there were 251,487 migrant encounters at the border in December. That's the highest figure for a single month ever, and brings the latest three-month total up to 717,600.
Last month saw a surge in unauthorized immigration due to uncertainty over Title 42, a Trump-era policy that has expelled migrants at the border since the start of the pandemic.
Some 5 million migrants have crossed over the US southern border since January 2021 when the Biden administration took over the White House, according to the agency.
The Biden administration has launched new schemes to allow more Latinos into the US legally and advised unauthorized migrants to stay at home, but Republicans still blame him for unruly scenes at the US-Mexico frontier.
Stein said Biden's plan to 'parole in more people' was no solution.
'That merely incentivizes more to come until conditions in the US replicate those of the sending nations,' he told DailyMail.com.
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