America's NORTHERN border sees 550% increase in migrant 'apprehensions', as more than 6,000 crossers from 79 countries are nabbed

The US border with Canada has seen a 550 percent surge in migrant apprehensions, with 6,925 apprehensions in fiscal year 2023.

Border Patrol agents have detained people from 79 countries in the Swanton Sector, which covers the borders of New York, New Hampshire and Vermont with Canada.

However, Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said most of the migrants come from Mexico, India, Venezuela, Haiti and Romania.

It's a significant surge since last year, when 1,000 migrants were apprehended at the same border region - and also since 2021, when just 365 were detained during the pandemic.

The northern border at large is seeing more migrants than in previous years; there were 189,402 migrant encounters in 2023, compared with 109,535 in 2022 and 27,000 in 2021.

The northern border is over 5,000 miles long and has just 115 ports of entry, meaning massive areas of it are understaffed, officials say.

Chief Garcia raised the alarm about the situation at the northern border earlier this year, calling for volunteers. 

He warned traffickers are exploiting desperate asylum seekers with potentially lethal consequences, amid freezing temperatures and dangerous passages. 

There is no fencing along the crossing and much of the area is woods and dirt paths. 

Nearly two-thirds of the southbound migrants arrested by U.S. border agents in the Swanton Sector are from Mexico, according to CBP numbers.

In March, U.S. Customs and Border Protection transferred 25 extra agents to the northern border.

A CBP spokesman told NBC their agency began temporarily deploying Border Patrol agents from sectors 'not experiencing an influx' to the Swanton Sector of the U.S.-Canadian border 'due to migration fluctuations along the Northern Border.'

'While the apprehension numbers are small compared to other areas with irregular migration flows, Swanton Sector apprehensions constitute a large change in this area,' the spokesman said. 

'The deployed team will serve as a force multiplier in the region and assist to deter and disrupt human smuggling activities being conducted in the Swanton Sector area of responsibility.'

Still, northern border crossings pale in comparison to the US-Mexico border, which this year saw more than 2.4 million migrant encounters. 

Rep. Elise Stefanik, whose New York district is on the border with Canada, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last month to complain about the problem.

She said CBP agents reported 2,238 migrant encounters for all of fiscal year 2022 but, in the first four months of this fiscal year, migrant encounters have risen to 2,227, which is nearly surpassing last year’s total.

Migrants who make it to Mexico and can afford the $350 one-way plane ticket from Mexico City or Cancun to Montreal or Toronto then cross into the U.S. at the northern border, where they are less likely to be turned away than at the Southern border.

It's an option many migrants are taking due to crackdowns at the southern border.

But hypothermia and freezing to death are risks, particularly this time of year, as families are making the journey on foot in the cold and snow.

In December, U.S. border agents found themselves giving life-saving aid to migrants they found in the cold and snow.

The problem works both ways as migrants also walking across the border from the United States and into Canada.

More than 39,000 refugees entered Canada last year via unofficial crossings, the vast majority via Roxham Road linking Quebec and New York State.

It is the highest number since 2017 - when there was a spike because of then-President Donald Trump's crackdown on migrants.