(Washington) Warmer weather and fading fears over COVID-19 could increase irregular migration across the Canada-U.S. border, experts believe.
Posted at 1:56 p.m.
Police have seen so far this year, even during the cold winter months, a record number of potential asylum seekers trying to enter Canada — most of them in Quebec, via Roxham Road, in Montérégie.
Meanwhile, US authorities also seem to be seeing more people attempt to cross the border in the other direction.
Six Aboriginal people were rescued in late April from a boat that was sinking on the St. Regis River in upstate New York. According to court documents, it was a human trafficking operation gone wrong.
A family of four other Indian migrants died last January while trying to cross the American border from Manitoba, across fields in freezing cold. Prosecutors believe it is also a similar human trafficking scheme.
Border officials in Vermont and Maine also recently intercepted vehicles full of people who entered the United States irregularly, including a group of Romanian nationals from Canada.