US Border Patrol agents rounded up 20 Romanian nationals who illegally crossed into Maine from Canada on Wednesday — two of whom were flagged as members of a transnational criminal organization.
Agents tracked four vehicles crossing into the state from New Brunswick shortly after 6 a.m. and arrested the occupants before transporting them for processing at Fort Fairfield, the Border Patrol announced in a statement.
“This incident is indicative of an overall rise in apprehensions witnessed here in Houlton Sector,” Acting Patrol Agent in Charge Dennis Harmon said in a statement.
“In the last three Octobers, Houlton Sector encountered a total of 33 individuals. In fiscal year 2024 alone, we’ve encountered 55. While this increase poses challenges to Border Patrol resources, it does not dissuade the great work done by our dedicated agents here in Houlton Sector.”
The “coordinated” effort included 10 juveniles and 10 adults, two of whom “were positive Transnational Criminal Organized Crime matches and were processed for Expedited Removal proceedings,” according to the press release. --->READ MORE HERE
The US border with Canada has seen a 550 percent surge in migrant apprehensions, with 6,925 apprehensions in fiscal year 2023.
Border Patrol agents have detained people from 79 countries in the Swanton Sector, which covers the borders of New York, New Hampshire and Vermont with Canada.
However, Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said most of the migrants come from Mexico, India, Venezuela, Haiti and Romania.
It's a significant surge since last year, when 1,000 migrants were apprehended at the same border region - and also since 2021, when just 365 were detained during the pandemic.
The northern border at large is seeing more migrants than in previous years; there were 189,402 migrant encounters in 2023, compared with 109,535 in 2022 and 27,000 in 2021.
The northern border is over 5,000 miles long and has just 115 ports of entry, meaning massive areas of it are understaffed, officials say.
Chief Garcia raised the alarm about the situation at the northern border earlier this year, calling for volunteers.
He warned traffickers are exploiting desperate asylum seekers with potentially lethal consequences, amid freezing temperatures and dangerous passages.
There is no fencing along the crossing and much of the area is woods and dirt paths.
Nearly two-thirds of the southbound migrants arrested by U.S. border agents in the Swanton Sector are from Mexico, according to CBP numbers.--->READ MORE HERE
If you like what you see, please "Like" and/or Follow us on FACEBOOK here, GETTR here, and TWITTER here.
No comments:
Post a Comment