Currently, nearly 6,000 Customs and Border Patrol officers are either patrolling or managing the flow of people and goods at ports of entry and crossings along the 5,525 miles that connect the U.S. and Canada. Comparatively, more than 16,000 Border Patrol officers are assigned to the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
Edward Alden, a visiting professor at Western Washington University focused on immigration policy and trade, said border security at ports of entry along the northern border is pretty good. But the landscape also presents unique challenges.
“A lot of the border is wilderness,” he said. “There’s nothing close to what exists along the southern border, which is a combination of hard fencing — about 700 miles or so — and an intense surveillance regime.”
The U.S. has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over 30 years at the southern border. That same investment has not been made at the northern border.
“If your metric is a border where you cannot cross between the ports of entry without detection, then the U.S.-Canada border is pretty porous,” Alden said.
Harmit Gill, the Blaine area port director for CBP, told ABC News in October 2024 that his agents do the best that they can with the resources that they’re given. However, he estimated the northern border’s facilities are 10 years behind those at the southern border.
The Seattle CBP Field Office’s border jurisdiction stretches from Blaine all the way to eastern Minnesota. Included in that 1,800-mile range are the Cascades, the Rockies and endless high plains. Crossing the northern border is dangerous when accounting for geography as well as winter weather and below-freezing temperatures.
However, a majority of border patrol encounters, which are when border patrol agents interact with someone either crossing illegally or who is not allowed to enter the country, along the northern border over the last three years have happened in Vermont, New York and New Hampshire, according to CBP data. Blaine accounts for a fraction of encounters.
Encounters at the northern border are still considerably down compared to encounters at the southern border. CBP encounters at the southern border in fiscal year 2024 totaled around 2.1 million. Meanwhile, CBP encounters at the northern border in the same time period totaled around 199,000.
U.S. officials have been changing policy at the northern border due to the uptick in migrants crossing illegally, leading to a drop in crossings, according to the New York Times. They’ve changed the process to make returning migrants to Canada easier, and have deployed more officials to the border to process and transfer people into detention.
Further border policy changes are likely to be coming as President Donald Trump prepares to take office later this month and the Senate races to confirm his pick for Department of Homeland Security Secretary, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
For example, the House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act Tuesday, Jan. 7, which would place immigrants who entered the country illegally, and then were arrested for burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting, in the custody of DHS. Four Washington congress members voted in favor of the bill, including Republican Rep. Dan Newhouse, whose district borders portions of Canada.
Democrat Rep. Rick Larsen, who represents Whatcom and Skagit counties, voted no on the bill.
The Senate voted Thursday, Jan. 9, to begin debate on the bill. Votes on the bill’s amendments are expected to start next week.
Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
