A county sheriff in New York state is calling for more border patrol agents in the region as it experiences a tenfold increase in border crossings over the last year, according to NBC News.
David Favro, the sheriff for Clinton County in the northeastern corner of New York, said his department is seeing “more and more people” attempt to cross the Canadian border, which he noted “can be deadly terrain if you’re not familiar with it.”
“The only way to really be able to cover and protect [the northern border] is boots on the ground,” Favro said, per NBC News.
The portion of the nation’s northern border spanning eastern New York, Vermont and New Hampshire has seen a tenfold increase in illegal border crossings in the last five months compared to the same time last year, according to data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Nearly 2,000 migrants, primarily from Mexico, attempted to cross the U.S.-Canada border in the region from October 2022 to February 2023. Over the same period last year, only 200 migrants attempted to make the crossing.
CBP announced earlier this month that it would assign 25 additional border agents to the section of the northern border. While about 16,000 border agents cover the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, about 2,000 agents cover the 5,000-mile border with Canada, according to NBC News.
Crossing the northern border comes with its own perils. Favro’s team helped rescue a group of 39 migrants last weekend, some of whom had their clothes frozen to their bodies, NBC News reported. A local fire chief recently also helped rescue two migrants who got stuck in an icy swamp and needed treatment for frostbite and mild hypothermia.