Border Patrol officials in the North Country have said they’re seeing an unprecedented number of illegal crossings from Canada. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is co-sponsoring a bill that would require the federal government to update its strategy for enforcement at the northern border.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported almost 190,000 migrant encounters at and between ports of entry on the U.S.-Canada border in Fiscal Year 2023. The current fiscal year is on track to exceed that.
Gillibrand says border communities aren’t equipped to handle that level of migration, and that’s compounded by the fact that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security hasn’t updated its northern border strategy since 2018.
"We desperately need to make sure local Customs and Border Protection officers have the resources and funding they need to respond effectively to these changing migrant patterns," she said during a Zoom press conference Wednesday.
Gillibrand is cosponsoring the Northern Border Security Enhancement and Review Act. It would require the Department of Homeland Security to analyze the current situation at the northern border and update its strategy regularly.
"It might mean different kinds of review, it might mean different kinds of technology," Gillibrand said. "We might need to implement different kinds of border tech so we can catch these people who are sneaking across in unsafe conditions."
Gillibrand says there’s a flourishing human smuggling industry along the border and some people have died trying to cross, like the Indian and Romanian families who drowned in the St. Lawrence River last year. She says on top of that, guns and drugs are being trafficked.
"It’s time to give the northern border the attention it deserves and do what needs to be done to keep vulnerable people and our northern border communities safe," she said.
The bill has support in both chambers of Congress and on both sides of the aisle. North Country Congresswomen Elise Stefanik and Claudia Tenney, both Republicans, have cosponsored the House version.
“The escalating crisis at our Northern Border demands nothing less than decisive and immediate action to safeguard our country," Tenney said in a statement earlier this year. "We must immediately enact the Northern Border Security Enhancement and Review Act to create a robust strategy to combat this growing threat at our Northern Border.”
Gillibrand says she’s hopeful the bill will go to the Senate floor for a vote in the lame duck session after the election.