(Washington) The United States border with Canada, the longest in the world and an enduring symbol of cooperation between the two neighbors, has never really been a partisan issue on Capitol Hill. But that may be about to change.
Two Republicans in the House of Representatives – Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania and Ryan Zinke of Montana – have enlisted 26 other members of Congress in a new coalition focused on immigration, crime and national security at the Canada-US border.
The two elected officials will chair what they call the “northern border security caucus”, which will be officially launched on Tuesday. This caucus is billed as “bipartisan,” though it’s not yet clear how many Democrats will be part of it — and even if there will be.
Members of this caucus “are concerned about the increase in human and drug trafficking, as well as the decrease in the number of border patrol agents and the lack of security along the Canada-United States border said Rep. Kelly’s office in a statement.
“Recent news reports, as well as data compiled over the past two years, show an increase in irregular migrant crossings and drug trafficking across the northern border. »
The launch of this caucus on Tuesday should include Republican representatives from North Dakota Kelly Armstrong, Minnesota Pete Stauber, New York State Claudia Tenney, Michigan Lisa McClain and Texas Tony Gonzales.
Leaders of the union that represents US Border Patrol agents are also expected to attend Tuesday’s event, including its vice president Hector Garza, a Fox News regular.
Attacking Joe Biden
Representatives Kelly and Zinke began canvassing for membership in January, with a written invitation to all members of Congress. But the rhetoric of the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Canadian Press, suggests the caucus is as much about attacking one of President Joe Biden’s weaker political flanks as it is about ensuring US national security. .
“The Southern states have been overwhelmed by illegal immigration, drug trafficking and record crime, which have continued to spill over into local communities. The Biden administration has stood still and watched these great states bear the brunt of disastrous and dangerous policies,” the letter read.
“Naturally, all the attention was on the southern border. Meanwhile, America’s northern frontier has been ignored, as it faces its own crises. »
Those challenges to the north include what the letter describes as a “fivefold increase” in two years of “border encounters,” as US Customs and Border Protection officials put it, as well as an increase in traffic. drug.
During the first four months of fiscal year 2023, from October to January, the agency recorded 55,736 “encounters” at or near the Canada-US border. These are people deemed inadmissible because of their immigration status or under “Section 42,” the pandemic-era public health order.
That number was more than double the nearly 24,000 encounters that took place in the same four months the previous year, and already halfway to the 109,535 reported in all of fiscal 2022.
This data includes 2,227 northern border encounters by U.S. officers in the first quarter of fiscal year 2023, which nearly matches the 2,238 reported by officers in the entire prior 12-month period.
An “under-guarded” border
The issue, long shrouded in the United States by the hundreds of thousands of “encounters” that occur each month near the southern border, burst into American news last winter when a family of four Indian nationals were frozen to death in Manitoba during a terrible blizzard, just steps from the border.
And most recently, on February 19, US officials recovered the body of a man from Mexico who allegedly entered Vermont from Quebec.
Customs and Border Protection officers on the northern border are often called upon to support their colleagues on the Mexican border, “further exacerbating existing personnel shortages,” Representatives Zinke and Kelly wrote in their letter.
“Even though the northern border is twice as large as the southern border, it is significantly under-policed and under-secured,” it read. House Republican leaders are right when they say, “Every state is a border state.” Our country and our communities cannot continue to remain silent in the conversation about border security. »
It may be no coincidence that a House Homeland Security Committee hearing is scheduled for Tuesday to examine the ‘widespread and crippling impact’ of the Biden administration’s handling of migration on the southern border. .
Canada, too, has its own problems with irregular migration at the border. Potential asylum seekers have been flocking from the United States across the land border into Canada for years, particularly at Roxham Road near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, which has become the busiest unofficial border crossing. Canada’s busiest.
The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada registered 5,599 asylum claims made by migrants who entered irregularly between July and September 2022, compared to 5,148 during the same period in 2019, before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It’s the highest total for the three-month period since 2017, former President Donald Trump’s first year in office, when more than 8,500 people crossed the border and entered Canada seeking relief. asylum.
With these numbers rising, political pressure is also mounting on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called for the closure “within 30 days” of Roxham Road. And Quebec Premier Francois Legault has urged his federal counterpart to pressure the United States to renegotiate the bilateral “safe third country” agreement, which opened up this loophole in the first place.