(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) Record numbers of illegal aliens are trekking through chilly eastern Canada, making their way into the United States via the northern border.
Border Patrol officials in Vermont, New York and New Hampshire—all part of the Swanton Sector of the northern border—said the rates in the first three months of the fiscal year of 2023 have seen 743% increase in illegal crossings, the Post Millennial reported.
“Combined apprehensions and encounters in Fiscal Year 2023 have already surpassed that of Fiscal Year 2022,” Customs and Border Protection stated in a press release. “Recent trends represent a sustained increase in illegal border crossings as we head into the harshest winter months.”
Massive amounts of snow and freezing temperatures are normal in the northernmost regions in the earliest months of the year. Those unprepared for the climate may find themselves struggling with hypothermia.
Vermont Border Patrol officers in particular receive numerous 911 calls from cold, desperate migrants attempting to cross the border.
“Environmental challenges, coupled with the sharp increase in illicit cross-border traffic, generate great concern for the potential loss of human life,”said the CBP statement, lamenting the fact that “Swanton Sector Border Patrol continues to encounter family groups with children (aged as young as a few months old) crossing uncertain terrain in single-digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures.”
In November, Border Patrol agents encountered six people near Troy, Vt., after a 911 call. Four were children under age 5. While they were able to take them to safety, Swanton BP Sector said in an announcement, “This is NOT a safe or acceptable way to enter the United States.”
Concern for the migrants—s well as the officers putting their lives on the line to save the foreign nationals—caused Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert N. Garcia to release a statement on the matter.
“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,” he explained.
“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,” he added.
Border officials across America’s northernmost states confirmed that crossing rates are rising and cited concern for people’s safety.
