If You’re Travelling in the North Country Fair…
Issue.
Tom Homan, the former ICE Director and “Project 2025” contributor who is President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming “Border Czar,” has referred to the Canadian border as an “extreme” national security vulnerability for the United States. Homan claims “special interest aliens from countries that sponsor terror” are of specific concern.
Homan’s remarks refer primarily to the US Border Patrol “Swanton Sector,” which covers upstate New York along the St. Lawrence River, and all northern Vermont and northern New Hampshire. But it is clear, that all 9,000 kilometres of the shared Canada – US border is going to be characterized as a “problem” by the incoming administration.
How “extreme” is the vulnerability?
According to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), “encounters” with southbound illegal migrants at the northern border have increased significantly over the past several years, from 961 in 2021, to nearly 24,000 to date in 2024. About 19,000 of those have been in the Swanton Sector. By contrast, during the US government’s 2024 fiscal year (which runs from October to October) CBP reported about three million “inadmissible” encounters along the southern border with Mexico. Even with the increase, CBP detentions at the Canadian border represent less than one percent of detentions at the southern border, a figure that is barely statistically significant.
Meanwhile, the President-elect has claimed that among the reasons he intends to impose a 25% tariff on goods imported from Canada and Mexico is “an invasion of drugs, in particular, fentanyl,” which has killed around 150,000 Americans over the past two years. CBP figures show that last year, border agents seized about 10 tonnes of fentanyl coming across the southern border. At the northern border, meanwhile, seizures of all drugs inbound from Canada have declined precipitously, from more than 27,000 kilograms in 2022 to 5,260 kilograms last year. Of that total, 19.5 kilograms was fentanyl. And despite Mr. Trump’s claims of an “invasion,” neither the US Drug Enforcement Administration, nor officials in border states, have even mentioned Canada as a source of illegal drugs in the United States.
What’s going on here?
At least some of the surge in illegal movement across the US / Canada border is attributable to American immigration policy. In early 2020, as the Covid 19 pandemic took hold, the first Trump administration invoked Title 42, a piece of US public health legislation that prohibits entry into the United States to prevent the spread of contagious disease. Widely criticized as an anti-immigrant measure rather than a public health necessity, Title 42 allowed border authorities to detain and immediately expel irregular migrants – including asylum seekers – with no due process. When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he kept Title 42 in place, citing the exigencies of the pandemic. By the time it was rescinded, in May 2023, 2.5 million migrants had been expelled from the United States.
In June of this year, just 13 months after the lifting of Title 42, President Biden signed an executive order allowing US authorities to deport migrants – including asylum seekers – who enter the country illegally without due process. The order is based on legislation that allows a US president to prohibit entry to any migrant if they are “detrimental” to US interests. This is the same legislation that was used by the first Trump administration to bar entry to travelers and migrants from many Muslim countries, and to block all illegal migrants from claiming asylum.
Canada plays catch-up?
Border myths.
One of the complicating factors here is the historical American perception of Canada as a kind of “Achilles Heel” for US sovereignty and security. In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, for example, then Senator Hillary Clinton asserted that the hijackers had entered the United States from Canada by crossing from Ontario into Vermont (pro tip: Ontario and Vermont do not share a border). In fact, they had all entered the United States from third countries with valid US visas. Even a decade after the fact, many Americans believed that at least some of the 9/11 hijackers had infiltrated the United States from Canada.
Cases like that of Ahmed Ressam, the 1999 “Millenium Bomber” who was caught as he tried to enter the United States at Port Angeles, Washington or, more recently, the arrest of Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, who planned to travel to New York from Canada to attack a “Jewish Center,” are the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, last month’s FBI arrest on espionage-related charges of Russian “political consultant” Nomma Zarubina, who had just returned to Washington D.C. from a conference on Parliament Hill, points to the distinct possibility of “northbound” security threats from the United States.
A similar dynamic lies at the root of Mr. Trump’s characterization of an “invasion” of fentanyl from Canada. Anybody in Canadian security or law enforcement who worked closely with US agencies like DHS, DEA, FBI or ATF has had the experience of being lectured at great length about the huge amounts of contraband – from drugs to illegal guns to counterfeit goods – allegedly entering the United States from Canada. In fact, the opposite has always been the case.
Everything to Lose: Why We Care.
The problem with all of this is that, from a Canadian perspective, this is a lose / lose situation, especially given the incoming US administration’s stated intention to carry out mass deportations of illegal migrants.
One possible government response to Homan’s and Trump’s assertion that the northern border is a vulnerability, is Finance Minister Freeland’s stance that it is Canada’s responsibility, and Canada’s alone, to address its own border-related issues. This will likely provoke an American response, whether in the form of tariffs, hardening of the border, or some other combination of punitive measures. Domestically, the resulting economic and political fallout will immediately be blamed on whatever government is in power, with all that implies in terms of the threat level to elected officials.
Meanwhile, any perception that the government is not doing enough (and what constitutes “enough” from the perspective of the incoming US administration is open to interpretation) will exacerbate anti-immigrant / refugee sentiment in Canada. This is a real problem. A recent Nanos poll shows that the number of Canadians who believe that this country should accept fewer immigrants rose from 53% to 64% over the last year. Malicious and anti-government online chatter in this country is already using US phraseology like “the enemy within,” lifted directly from the Trump lexicon.
Finally, if any Canadian government decides to work alongside the US in “hardening” the border, questions of sovereignty are likely to become vexing. Indeed, there are indications that the current government is proposing to spend up to $1 billion on border security. Many Canadians will certainly question this, pointing to much more critical domestic issues that require funding, like child poverty, the health care crisis, and the critical state of First Nations communities.
Just as importantly, any proposed major spending on border security will almost certainly be interpreted by a whole range of actors on both sides of the border as “proof” that Canada is a.) a threat to US security, and b.) that the Canadian immigration “problem” is out of control. Wide-casting this kind of messaging will have a profound, even inflammatory effect on anti-government rhetoric in this country.
