Illegal immigration at Canadian Border surged under Biden — nearly ten times the terror-related arrests as the southern border

BOSTON, MA - Border Patrol Agent in Charge Erik Lavallee of the Beecher Falls Station in Vermont revealed to reporters in October that human smuggling along the U.S. border with Canada is still rampant, months after an exposé from WBZ revealed that a record 7,000 people were apprehended in 2023. Since that report, the number of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. over the northern border continued to explode to 19,000 in fiscal 2024.

This number reportedly included at least one terrorist living in Canada who was arrested while plotting an ISIS-inspired attack against a New York Jewish Center.

As reported by CBS News, Lavallee told reporters "We have multiple identified transnational criminal organizations that are transporting people away from the border." The outlet noted that the terrorist, Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, 20, a Pakistani living in Canada, was reportedly seeking out a human smuggler to take him over the border. He was arrested in Quebec just 12 miles from the border in September and later charged by the Department of Justice.

The report indicated that in addition to more mundane border interdiction operations that seize illegal firearms to controlled flora and fauna and self-professed gang members, the northern border is seeing more apprehensions of terrorist suspects than the border with Mexico, with at least 321 suspects on the terrorism watchlist arrested in 2024 compared to 46 on the southern border.

Lavallee expressed concerns about the potential terrorists the agency is not catching, though, saying, "It's not the ones that we've caught, and we've been able to vet that are the concern to me. It is the individuals that we don't know about."

In a departure from Spring trends, rather than an influx of Mexican nationals seeking to throw off the Border Patrol by stopping first in Canada before attempting illegal entry, Border Patrol officials said that they are now encountering more illegal crossers from India and SouthEast Asian nations.

Michael Barutciski, an international affairs Professor at York University, told the outlet, "Indian nationals do require a visa to enter Canada but there was apparently a decision by the government to not be as strict in processing the visa applications. For example, no longer asking for proof that the visitor will be returning to their country. It's actually quite striking that Canada's immigration minister has admitted that the security screening overseas is unreliable."

Barutciski added that Canadian immigration policies reeling in the near-unlimited immigration from Asian into our northern neighbor is beginning to drive illegal immigration into the U.S. "Many will end up considering illegal options. Either they're staying undocumented in Canada or they're crossing the border illegally into the U.S.," Barutciski said.

Lavallee made it clear that while he and northern Border Patrol agents are not yet overwhelmed, the problem of 'gotaways' so common at our southern border "is certainly significant enough to be a concern."