Earlier this month, a Coast Guard officer noted the shift of illegal trafficking of people and drugs from land to sea, following the crackdown on the southern border. He said: “It’s kind of like squeezing a balloon — you squeeze the balloon, and the air pushes to the other side.”
Well, another side of the “balloon” — the border with Canada — is experiencing the same surge as the coasts. Testifying in front of the House Intelligence Committee yesterday, Kash FBI Director Patel warned the lawmakers:
[Known or suspected terrorists] are coming in with much less frequency at the southern border. In fact, if my information is correct, two since Jan. 20, and they are coming in with much greater frequency in the northern border. Since Jan. 20, that number is 34. So what it tells me is that known or suspected terrorists, the individuals that want to do the most harm to this country, are utilizing the northern border, and we’ve got to refocus assets up there.
According to official CBP statistics, since Jan. 20, terrorist encounters at the southern border numbered 29. But at the same time, along the northern border, the number of terrorists encountered was 143. For fiscal year 2024, the number of such encounters at the southern border was 52, while those at the northern border numbered 358.
Declaring “the enemy adapts,” Patel said that the application of significant resources to the southern border has caused adversaries such as China, Russia and Iran to shift their attention to the north.
The number of illegal Chinese migrants, in particular, skyrocketed during the Biden years, rising to more than 24,000 in 2023, an increase of more than 5,200% from the previous year. Between 2022 and 2025, roughly 178,000 Chinese nationals attempted to cross the southern border.
As the enemy adapts, so must we. The long-ignored Canadian border requires attention.
For more, see Fox News.