It is not just the southern border that has turn into a crisis under President Biden – the US-Canada border is approaching a four-fold increase in migrants from the north.
In a scathing letter to Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who represents much of Latest York’s northern border with Canada, criticizes the administration for allowing an almost fourfold increase in the variety of migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl entering the US since Northeast Front, which also includes Vermont and Maine.
Stefanik said Customs and Border Guard officers reported 2,238 encounters with migrants in the entire 2022 fiscal yr. Nevertheless, in the first 4 months of this fiscal yr, the variety of encounters with migrants skyrocketed to 2,227 – almost surpassing last yr’s total.
“This recent influx, together with spikes in drug trafficking and the understaffing of US Border Patrol (USBP) agents, is one other troubling example of your failure to guard and secure your homeland,” wrote Stefanik, a top Republican Party leader in the House of Representatives. a letter signed by one other upstate representative, Nick Langworthy.
“Over the past two years, the southern border states have been overwhelmed by record illegal immigration, drug smuggling and crime that continues to pour into local communities,” she wrote.
“This administration has stood idly by as these countries of ours bear the brunt of a disastrous and dangerous policy. Now your refusal to deal with these crises has put communities on America’s northern frontier, from Alaska to Maine, along the world’s longest international border, to the forefront of a growing threat to our national security.”
The woes on the northern border are only Mayorkas and Biden’s latest problem.
Two Republican MPs have filed charges against Mayorca, claiming it has committed “serious crimes and misdemeanors” in its handling of the southern border crisis.
Meanwhile, Latest York City and other American urban centers struggle to handle the never-ending influx of 1000’s of migrants into the city from its southern border – and Big Apple Mayor Eric Adams is all but begging the federal government for financial assistance to assist cover the rising costs of shelter, food and other costs.
“Agents proceed to place themselves in danger to maintain our communities secure, and this 475% increase in encounters in the first 4 months of RO22 is each unsustainable and symptomatic of your wider failure to secure the border,” she wrote of the alarming northern exposure.
“As temperatures reach sub-zero levels and USBP agents conduct life-saving search and rescue missions, you proceed to insist that you simply are managing the border in a secure, orderly and humane manner. Nevertheless, our northern border is heading in the right direction to see greater than 10,000 meetings in RO23 while your department continues to downplay the threat posed by the wide-open northern border,” said Stefanik, House Republican House Speaker.
Along with the increase in illegal immigration, the northern border has seen a surge in drugs
smuggling. Excluding marijuana, the weight of drug smuggling increased by 596% along the northern border from fiscal yr 2021 to fiscal yr 2022, based on statistics cited by the congresswoman.
Seizures of the stimulant khat increased by 1756%, ecstasy by 736%, ketamine by 663% and methamphetamine by 204%.
“Much more concerning,” said Stefanik, “CBP seized 14 kilos of fentanyl in RO22 along the northern border, enough to kill around 3.17 million people. The damage this deadly drug can do to communities has been well documented over the years, especially in the Latest England states. We cannot allow one other route of fentanyl smuggling into our communities already flooded with a drug crisis in the south.”
At the same time, Border Patrol staffing has remained relatively low amid a rise in illegal border crossing and drug smuggling along the Canadian border, Stefanik said.
Stefanik said there are 2,019 Border Patrol agents in the 138 border ports along the northern states, spanning 5,525 border miles, and a few of them assist with southern border duties.
“Officials from the northern sectors of the Border Patrol tell us that they’ve also undertaken additional work to support agents at the southern border – clearly digitally processing irregular migrants who’ve been apprehended at the southern border,” Stefanik said.
She also cited a 2019 US Government Accountability Office report that the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t even have performance metrics to evaluate security concerns along the northern border.
“The surge in border encounters and drug smuggling, coupled with a shortage of Border Patrol agents and an absence of security measures, is putting America’s northern border in serious jeopardy. As winter turns into spring, we’re deeply concerned that Northern Border Patrol agents can be much more overwhelmed, under-resourced and understaffed,” warned Mayorkas Stefanik.
“Please provide a full description of what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will do to mitigate the flow of illegal migrants and illegal drugs into the U.S. across our northern border.”
Mayorkas and the Department of Homeland Security had no immediate comment.