An increasing number of Mexicans are getting arrested for illegally crossing the northern border from Canada into the United States.
According to federal law enforcement officials, the majority are going through a sector in Vermont and northeastern New York, reported the Washington Examiner.
Of the total 822 people who were stopped while crossing the border between official crossing points, Mexicans and Romanians numbered at 565.
Patrol Agent Norm Lague, who oversees operations at Champlain Station, New York, told the Washington Examiner that his station’s intelligence unit had determined that more than half of the Mexicans and Romanians they detained had gone to Canada via the Electronic Travel Authorization program, a program that allows people from some countries to enter without a visa.
“A majority of the people who we’re apprehending from these countries have leveraged this program,” said Lague. “It’s a pathway that we discovered years ago was starting to shift as far as people being smuggled from the southern border to Canada and then coming south. And I think that trend, once it gets well known … I can see that trend continuing, most definitely.”
Customs and Border Patrol data (pdf) shows that the number of people detained has been increasing steadily. 4,316 people were apprehended near the northern border in 2018, compared to 3,027 in 2017 and 2,283 in 2016.
“Any enforcement standard that is adhered to on the southern border is going to have a direct correlation on the numbers up here,” Lague said. “If you’re gonna charge 5, 6, 8, $10,000 to move a group through [the southern border], I’m sure [smugglers] can negotiate the plane tickets [to Canada] in there, too.”
Study: 14 Million Illegal Immigrants in United States Cost Americans $132 Billion a Year
A new study says that 14 million illegal immigrants currently reside in the United States and the cost to taxpayers is some $132 billion a year.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) said that the population of illegal aliens in the country has risen about two million in two years and now stands at 14.3 million (pdf).
Analysts project the population to keep rising, hitting over 21 million by 2025.
According to the group, the rising numbers of illegal aliens in the country are due to a number of factors, including unsecured borders, “an explosion in sanctuary jurisdictions throughout the United States,” and the availability of jobs, a major attraction for migrants.
The estimated cost to taxpayers of $132 billion was taken by multiplying the estimated number of aliens by the net cost per illegal immigrant as calculated by FAIR analysts in 2017 using local, state, and national data.
According to the analysts, that figure is about $8,075 per illegal alien family member. The majority of the costs were at the state or local level. The cost estimate was arrived at using tax receipts, education records, healthcare information, immigration enforcement data, welfare data, and tax information from federal, state, and local government data as well as academic studies or think tank studies.
Epoch Times reporter Zachary Steiber contributed to this report.
