In the Swanton Border Patrol Sector that spans Eastern New York, Vermont, and New Hampshire, illegal crossings from Canada have exploded from 574 in 2020 to a staggering 19,222 in 2024 – more than the last 17 years combined.
While this may seem like a relatively small problem, considering an average of 2.4 million illegal immigrants poured into the U.S. every year of Biden’s presidency, it is important to note that 87% of individuals identified as “terror suspects” trying to enter the U.S. via land border came from Canada.
So these are not people trying to find a better life. These are criminals and terrorists.
There has also been a dramatic rise in illegal smuggling. Everything from illegal cigarettes, drugs, and weapons, to women and children being sex trafficked.
Like anyone else who has grown up upstate, it is impossible to ignore the problem, especially as it reached a fever pitch under the four-year reign of Joe Biden.
Along with being born and raised upstate, I spent 5 years boxing professionally in Mexico, so I have a unique firsthand perspective on the crisis, and the truth is that illegal immigration is bad for everyone.
It is bad for the communities being overrun. From small towns to big cities, Biden’s wide open border policy is wreaking havoc.
Illegal immigrants are taking working-class jobs, driving down American wages, straining resources, and forcing Americans out of their homes with skyrocketing housing and rent prices.
Even more troubling is that they are bringing crime, including murder and rape, along with drugs like fentanyl, which kills more than 100,000 Americans every year.
But illegal immigration is also bad for the immigrants themselves.
I was in Mexico when President Trump vacated the White House and saw how practically every household debated coming to America.
Joe Biden and the Democrats were rolling out the red carpet, signalling that all you had to do was reach the border to get asylum (and all the American taxpayer-funded perks that come with it). Biden even created a smartphone app, which Trump shuttered on day one, to check in at the border, with 64.3 million requests being sent through the app since 2023.
Most had no idea what was on the other side of the wall. They just heard it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get asylum from the Democrats who wanted as many immigrants as possible because they thought it’d benefit their political party.
But contrary to media depictions of illegal aliens’ journeys to the US, most end up entering and getting trapped in America, often unhappy, and unable to see their family members ever again because asylum traps them here indefinitely.
Of course, I am referring to illegal entries from the south. The northern border is a different animal altogether.
According to the New York State Sheriff's Association, the vast majority of illegal immigrants being apprehended in the North Country are adult males between ages 20 and 40.
When caught, many claim to be “asylum seekers” from South and Central American countries, a laughable claim that also begs the question: Why the north?
What is clear is that criminal cartel organizations are increasingly taking advantage of lax immigration enforcement in Canada and severely-lacking border security up north.
One other major factor in this increase in illegal crossings that gets virtually no coverage is cartels embedding themselves in Indian reservations, many of which border Canada, to smuggle contraband and people with ease.
Shocking reports reveal that men in these cartels actively pursue relationships with Native American women, with the goal of building bases of operation along the border. They have also been known to get Native Americans hooked on illegal drugs in order to force them to operate as drug dealers and human smugglers themselves in order to get their fix.
The lack of reporting on this issue is partially due to the vicious violence and threats these cartels exert on their victims in order to keep them quiet.
Just last year, a tribal leader in Montana was forced to cancel his testimony before Congress about this very issue due to extreme death threats.
This is a unique national security threat to the US that must be addressed. As a candidate for New York’s 21st district, I will make it a point to secure the U.S.’s northern border with Canada. In the fight to put America First, we have to cover all of our bases.
For too long, America’s globalist ruling class has ignored the will of the voters and has kept the open border floodgates wide open. Thankfully, this globalist nightmare came to an end on November 5, 2024 when Donald Trump was re-elected. Trump’s landslide victory in the Electoral College has given him a mandate to carry out what voters nationwide demand — securing our border.
As a Congressman in New York’s 21st District, I will work with President Trump to secure both of our borders and reform our immigration system so that it benefits Americans.
