House Republicans just held a committee hearing in North Dakota to deal with a reported record number of border crossings.
With the federal government and numerous southern border state tasked with regulating the immigration of illegal immigrants entering the country from Mexico, that may seem odd. In response to censure, President Joe Biden late made plans to reduce hospital movement.
But while the U. S. Mexico borders has received the lion’s share of press coverage, some peculiar goings- on are underway along the 5, 525- mile U. S. Canada border as effectively.
Illegal bridges are occurring along certain boundary lines in unprecedented numbers. In the boundary region that overlooks upstate New York and parts of New England, for example, officials characterized new task as a “flood” of unlawful crossers.
In governmental 2023, Border Patrol agents in that field nabbed about 7, 000 improper crossers, which was simply more than had been rounded up there in the past 10 years combined. Reporters witnessed a portion of the storm during the Boston place WBZ TV’s visit of that area of the border when they witnessed Border Patrol agents “arrest a Ukrainian national who attempted to cross the border between Vermont and Canada” through a pond that straddles the Vermont-Canada border.
The crossers ‘ countries are everywhere on the map, with a sizable portion coming from Mexico at the northern borders. The fact that the United States is located between Mexico and Canada is a plausible argument. Mexican nationals who find themselves in Canada either have to go through the country to get home or travel by boat across the country. According to Republicans, one of the main causes of this increase in improper traffic along the northern border is Mexican drug cartels.
” You ca n’t be further away from the Canadian border than Grand Forks”, Rep. Kelly Armstrong ( R- ND ) said at the May 29 field hearing in that North Dakota city of nearly 59, 000 people.
” We’re 70 miles from the Canadian border, but in every single society across the state of North Dakota, something is dying from fentanyl poisoning”, said Armstrong, the state’s Republican gubernatorial candidate this fall, and with the Peace Garden State’s strong GOP advantage, almost surely its next chief executive.
Armstrong, first elected to North Dakota’s lone House seat in 2018, added that” 100 % of those fentanyl pills are made by the cartels in Mexico”.
The federal government disagrees with that percentage or the country of origin for some of the fentanyl production that its agents are battling. Last year, for instance,” On April 11, 2023, the trial of , Marie Um , commenced, in Fargo, North Dakota”, the U. S. Department of Justice announced in a news release celebrating victory in that trial.
Um, 42, extradited from Montreal, Quebec, “was part of an organization that was receiving fentanyl and fentanyl analogs from China and importing them into the United States”, according to the DOJ. She was found guilty and given a 23-year prison sentence. At least 31 defendants have been charged in North Dakota and three have been charged in Oregon as a result of her case being a part of” Operation Denial.”
There is almost unanimity about the threat they represent, despite there being some disagreement about how frequently lethal these drugs are entered into North Dakota and who is carrying them.
” I do n’t particularly care how they’re getting here”, Armstrong said. ” I want it to stop”.
Four witnesses spoke at the field hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement: the North Dakota attorney general, two sheriffs, and the executive director of the Wahalla Area Chamber of Commerce.
The topics covered ranged from drug enforcement to illegal entry into the United States, and North Dakotan beef over shorter operating hours at U.S. border crossings. Due to the extensive Canadian lockdown and generally closed borders, those hours were shortened during COVID- 19 lockdowns, which made sense at the time. The Canadian side has returned to regular hours, but many U. S. entries have not.
Rebecca Davis, chamber of commerce head, criticized this mismatch, which” causes considerable confusion for travelers and disrupts the daily lives and economic activities of our communities.”
Only Republicans on the border?
House Republicans in this Congress have not brought up issues relating to the northern border before. The House Northern Border Security Caucus was founded in February 2023 to highlight problems of drug proliferation, smuggling, and national security. House Democrats were asked to attend the caucus, but they declined.
Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock (R-CA ) made the same observation in his opening remarks regarding the Grand Forks hearing as well.
” This is an official hearing of the House of Representatives, and I do want to lament the absence of any Democratic members or even Democratic witnesses or staff at today’s proceedings”, McClintock said.
Still, the hearing’s title was” The Biden Border Crisis: North Dakota Perspectives”, which was not the most inviting for House Democrats.
Frederick Gagnon, a professor at the University of Quebec in Montreal, believes that some issues that Republicans raise are legitimate but can quickly turn into campaign fodder.
After the formation of the Northern Border Security Caucus, Gagnon told the Washington Examiner,” There are definitely issues that require elected officials in both countries to pay more attention to the border at this time.”
Republicans can strengthen their message even more if they persuade the public that Biden does not know what he is doing along the Mexican border, he said, “in a situation where the majority of Americans believe that Biden is not doing the right thing,” he continued.
Canadian firearm fears
Concerns about the U. S. Canada border cut both ways, Gagnon pointed out. U. S. politicians tend to focus on drug smuggling from Canada, and Canadian politicians tend to focus on guns smuggled from the U. S.  , That is true of the Liberal Party,  , led , by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the Conservative Party opposition as well.
The Conservative public safety critic is Pierre Paul-Hus. He claimed that his party wanted to see a “plan that supports police anti-gang and gun units, a CBSA Firearms Smuggling Task Force, and increased access to mental health and addictions treatments” as an alternative to the government’s push for more domestic gun control in 2020, according to CBC News.
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In 2020, Canadian border guards seized 548 firearms. That number has climbed, but not by much with increased, post- pandemic border traffic factored in.
In 2023, border agents seized 874 firearms coming into Canada, according to the Canada Border Services Agency. An estimated 14 million firearms were purchased in the United States in that year.
