Behind the surge in migrants crossing America’s northern border | The shift exemplifies the fluid nature of migration

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>“WE MOVED TO a dead-end road,” says Daniel Labarge. A beer is lodged in the cup holder of his tractor as he goes about his Friday-afternoon chores. “Nice, calm, quiet. Then all of a sudden it blew up.” Mr Labarge’s farm in Champlain, New York, is within spitting distance of America’s northern border. A few years ago his unassuming street, Roxham Road, became a destination for migrants crossing north into Canada. Now, he says, the foot traffic is coming from the other direction.

>During Joe Biden’s presidency US Customs and Border Protection has recorded a record number of encounters with migrants at America’s southern border. Yet while the country’s attention has been on the Rio Grande, some migrant flows have shifted. Ever more people are trying to get to America via its border with Canada. Border Patrol has counted nearly 19,500 encounters with migrants crossing illegally so far this fiscal year, up from roughly 900 in 2021 (see chart). That is a tiny fraction of the foot traffic seen at the boundary with Mexico. But the rise of a northern route shows the challenge of policing the world’s longest land border between two countries, and the fluid nature of migration.

>The increase in crossings from Canada stems mostly from Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector, a 295-mile stretch of the borderlands that reaches from eastern New York, through Vermont and New Hampshire. Robert Garcia, the agent in charge of the area, posted on X in July that more migrants had been apprehended in his territory in ten months than in the previous 13 years combined. The majority are from Mexico and India.

>Geography helps explain why migrants are drawn to the Swanton Sector. They can travel south from Montreal, cross the border near Champlain and catch a bus to New York City. Dozens of migrants gather at the Greyhound stop in Plattsburgh, New York, where they huddle in a cramped shelter and await the bus. Soraya Seiden, who lives in town, hands out water and snacks every day. “It gets cold here soon…and daylight diminishes,” she says, “You see young girls, young men with their suitcase out there waiting in the dark.”

>The crossing is not without risks. There are no walls up here, but the borderlands where America and Canada meet are vast and rural. Dense forests surround fields of corn and wheat. The winter cold can be deadly. The frigid bodies of migrants are sometimes found on both sides.

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