Why is Trump identifying the US-Canada border as a problem?

President-elect Donald Trump’s ire toward Mexico for the flow of migrants into the US is nothing new. Now, he has added Canada as a target over the issue.

“As everyone is aware, thousands of people are pouring through Mexico and Canada, bringing Crime and Drugs at levels never seen before,” he asserted on the social media platform Truth Social on Monday.

The post also laid out his planned course of action: a 25 per cent tariff on all imports from both countries.

Here’s a look at what’s happening at the northern US border

Illegal crossings have risen sharply but remain far below those at the southern border

Border agents made more than 23,000 arrests at the northern border from October 2023 through September, the 2024 fiscal year, according to US Customs and Border Protection. That number has risen in recent years, from just over 2,000 in the 2022 fiscal year and around 10,000 in the 2023 fiscal year.

Most of the arrests took place in part of the northern border known as the Swanton Sector, an area between Quebec and Vermont, New Hampshire and New York.

Robert Garcia, the head Border Patrol agent in the Swanton area, said in a post on the social platform X in early October that “more than 19,222 subjects from 97 different countries” had been arrested in the past year, which he said was “more than its last 17 fiscal years combined.”

By contrast, illegal crossings at the southern border hit record highs late last year when nearly 2,50,000 arrests were made in December alone. President Joe Biden signed an order in June restricting asylum for those who crossed from Mexico, after which the numbers began to drop sharply. In October, border agents made about 56,000 arrests.

The rise is largely driven by Indian nationals

Canadian officials and experts believe that the jump in illegal crossings has been fueled primarily by immigrants arriving in Canada from India on tourism or other temporary visas and heading straight to the United States border, effectively using Canada as a steppingstone.

Indian nationals are the largest group of newer immigrants to Canada. A combination of a large existing community and outreach by Canadian employers and colleges trying to recruit workers and students from India has contributed to their numbers rising in recent years, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Most of those immigrants stay in Canada, but some aim to reach the United States. And ads on social media have helped popularize entry from Canada.

For example, a TikTok ad seen by some Indian migrants in Canada shows a group of men with US flag emojis hiding their faces and offers a “100 per cent safe route.” The provider offers to take travelers from Brampton, a city outside Toronto with a large South Asian population, to New York by taxi.

How have authorities responded?

The US federal government has deployed more personnel to the region, sent more migrants into Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody and changed the rules around asylum processing.

The United States and Canada signed a pact in 2002 that allows both countries to turn back migrants seeking asylum. The pact, the Safe Third Country Agreement, was expanded in 2023 to include the entire land border and internal waterways.

Beginning this August, US officials also limited the time migrants have to find lawyers and provide evidence to asylum officers to avoid deportation to Canada through the agreement.

Earlier in the year, the US turned back to Canada only a few migrants under the agreement. After mid-August, when the processing changes went into place, the US turned back to Canada more than 400 migrants, most of them Indian nationals.

Arrests for illegal crossings from Canada spiked to 3,600 in June, according to US Customs and Border Protection. The number dropped to around 1,800 in September and around 1,300 in October.

But the incoming Trump administration has seized on the issue. Thomas Homan, who Trump named as his “border czar,” told WWNY-TV in Watertown, New York, that the crossing was a “huge national security issue.”