On another crackdown – The Economist:

‘The increase in crossings from Canada stems mostly from Border Patrol’s Swanton Sector, a 295-mile stretch of the borderlands that reaches from eastern New York, through Vermont and New Hampshire. Robert Garcia, the agent in charge of the area, posted on X in July that more migrants had been apprehended in his territory in ten months than in the previous 13 years combined. The majority are from Mexico and India.
Geography helps explain why migrants are drawn to the Swanton Sector. They can travel south from Montreal, cross the border near Champlain and catch a bus to New York City. Dozens of migrants gather at the Greyhound stop in Plattsburgh, New York, where they huddle in a cramped shelter and await the bus. Soraya Seiden, who lives in town, hands out water and snacks every day. “It gets cold here soon…and daylight diminishes,” she says, “You see young girls, young men with their suitcase out there waiting in the dark.”’

(…)

‘Local and federal officials reckon people-smuggling networks are adjusting to the new regulations. “Migrant-smuggling organisations…are nothing if not resilient,” says Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former director of Canadian affairs for the Department of Homeland Security. “They will find ways to make money, and they will adapt to whatever any government does.” Policymakers are adapting, too. Since 2002 America and Canada have agreed to turn back migrants who cross at official ports. A Mexican man, for example, who crosses from America into Canada and claims asylum would be returned because he could have made his claim in the United States. Last year the countries expanded the policy to the entire border. In February Canada tightened visa restrictions for Mexican travellers. Last week the Biden administration extended some of the asylum policies implemented at the southern border, such as faster processing, to the northern one as well.
The crackdown may cause new routes to open elsewhere.’

Read the article here.

Networks are adjusting, refugees are adjusting.

As a senior employee for the IND, the Dutch Immigration and Naturalisation Service, told me in the summer of 2022: ‘The smugglers know our new rules better and faster than our own employees.’

Also, any crackdown will just lead to new routes.

And once again, as Hein de Haas explained in his book on migration, what is driving most of the migrants to the US and Europe is our demand for labor.