The death of a Mexican man who had just entered the United States illegally from Canada underscored the spike in illegal crossings along the northern border between Quebec and parts of New England, officials said.
The number of illegal crossings of the northern border is small compared to that recorded on the US-Mexico border, but the death of the Mexican who had arrived in Vermont from Quebec on Sunday night represents the first death in the area in recent times of someone who entered the United States illegally. His entry occurred at a site near Derby Line, Vermont, about 80 kilometers southeast of the Canadian city of Montreal.
There have been deaths of people trying to cross from the Canadian side of the border, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which is responsible for border security, reported that its officers have carried out several search and rescue operations for people who they intended to cross into the United States from Canada this winter in the region.
Border officials in both countries have been warning about the dangers facing people trying to cross the border and those who might be sent to rescue them.
Last year, a family of four Indian nationals froze to death in Manitoba, near its border with Minnesota and North Dakota. In December, a 44-year-old Haitian man who had tried to enter the United States illegally from Canada was found dead in a wooded area near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, not far from Champlain, New York, and about 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Montreal. And in April 2019, a Dominican also died in Canada, a short distance from Champlain.
Increase in crossings on the northern border
Statistics from the US Customs and Border Protection show that agents in the sector, which includes New Hampshire, Vermont and parts of upstate New York, apprehended 1,513 people who crossed the border illegally on October 1. from 2022 to January 31, 2023, compared to 160 arrests registered in the same period of the previous year. But the 2,227 apprehensions made along the entire northern border of the United States this fiscal year represent a small fraction of the 762,383 registered on the southern border of the country during the same period.
However, court documents filed in some of the northern border cases describe people entering Canada legally, where they pay others to drive them to the border. Once they cross into the United States, they meet another person who leads them into the country.
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