Canada Curbed Illegal Migration to the U.S. Now People Are Heading to Canada
The pre-dawn call by U.S. border agents to their Canadian counterparts was shocking: A group of nine people, most of them children, were about to enter Canada on foot.
On Feb. 3 at 6:16 a.m., when the group was spotted, the border between Alberta and Montana was brutally uninviting, covered in snow, dark with a temperature of minus 17 degrees Fahrenheit.
Grainy night-vision images captured by Canadian border cameras showed two little girls in pink winter wear holding a womanâs hand as they trudged through the snow. More children followed in a line. Another adult dragged two suitcases.
The quick intervention by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police crew that found the group was the result of a newly beefed-up border presence across the vast frontier between the United States and Canada. At 5,525 miles, the border is the worldâs longest.
Until recently, the border had been described by both nations as âunguarded,â a testament to their close friendship.
But with the return of President Trump to the White House, it has become a flashpoint in the relationship between the two neighbors.
Even before his inauguration, Mr. Trump accused Canada of allowing large numbers of unauthorized migrants to enter the United States. He has made stopping that movement a key demand as he threatens to impose crippling tariffs on Canadian exports to the United States.
After a one-month reprieve, Mr. Trump says those tariffs will now go into effect on Tuesday.
Canada has mobilized. It has deployed more staff and equipment along the border and tightened visa rules that critics say made Canada a steppingstone to enter the United States illegally.
The number of illegal crossings into the United States from Canada was relatively low to begin with, and has now plummeted, indicating that Canadaâs response to Mr. Trumpâs pressure is working.
But now a new dynamic is emerging at the border: Asylum seekers are fleeing north to Canada as Mr. Trump has embarked on his plan for sweeping deportations.
Border in Focus
On any given day, the Coutts-Sweetgrass border crossing in Alberta is an orderly hum of trucks, trains and civilian vehicles.
The two countriesâ border authorities even share a building.
âThere is close day-to-day communication,â Ryan Harrison, an R.C.M.P. staff sergeant, who heads an integrated border enforcement team, said on a bitterly cold February morning as he drove along Border Road, a gravel lane snaking through plains that marks the border for several miles. âThese are people we go for dinner with and attend their retirement parties.â
But Mr. Trumpâs criticisms have upended the business-as-usual atmosphere at the border.
Mr. Trump has been particularly alarmed by a jump in the number of unauthorized migrants entering the United States over the past three years.
The number of people apprehended last year crossing from Canada into the United States illegally was nearly 200,000. (That still pales in comparison to crossings from Mexico: Last year, more than two million people were apprehended at the U.S. southern border, U.S. government data shows.)
Canada has directed 1.3 billion Canadian dollars ($900 million) to enhance border security, adding two Black Hawk helicopters and 60 drones equipped with thermal cameras.
It also tightened requirements for temporary visas that some visitors used to arrive in Canada legally but then enter the United States illegally.
The Canadian government says its recent measures have drastically driven down the number of unauthorized crossing into the United States: About 5,000 migrants were intercepted at the border in January, a third of the figure in January 2024, according to U.S. data.
âWhether or not some of the allegations about what is going on at the border are accurate or not, or credible or not, I donât have the luxury not to take it seriously,â Marc Miller, Canadaâs immigration minister, said in an interview on Thursday.
He was in Washington, along with other senior Canadian ministers planning to meet with Trump administration officials in a last-ditch push to avert tariffs.
Mr. Miller said he would explain the measures Canada had taken and how they were working. But he also wanted to talk to U.S. officials about the recent uptick of people arriving in Canada from the United States.
The Opposite Direction
Canadaâs focus on the border, against the backdrop of Mr. Trumpâs domestic crackdown on migrants, is why the nine people walking into Alberta on Feb. 3 raised alarms: It was unusual to see a group this large crossing on foot in the heart of winter. The presence of young children made it all the more troubling.
The Canadian authorities say they have been intercepting more people arriving from the United States, but because of the schedule Canada follows in releasing data, no numbers are yet available for the weeks since Mr. Trumpâs inauguration in January. But government news releases suggest the numbers are rising.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/01/world/canada/canada-us-border-immigration.html