Border Patrol begs for help after record migrant surge from Canada

The Border Patrol is begging agents to volunteer in the north after a staggering nearly-850% surge of mostly-Mexican migrants illegally crossing into the US from Canada.

The agency’s Swanton Sector in Vermont — covering parts of upstate New York and New Hampshire — requested a “quick turnaround” of agents from the already overwhelmed southern border to make their way north to volunteer for at least a month starting next week.

Help is needed to control the “strain caused by the surge” of “primarily Mexican migrants with no legal documents,” Swanton’s Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia wrote in a memo obtained this week by Fox News.

“Due to the increased numbers, stations are task saturated with processing large groups, which has contributed” to more migrants being able to slip into the country, the memo notes.

The request came a week after Garcia reported that crossings had reached “historic highs” — even as temperatures plummet to deadly lows of minus-four degrees.

His sector said that the current fiscal year — which started in October — “demonstrates an approximate 846% increase in encounters and apprehensions compared to the same period” in the previous year.

In fact, the first four months of the current fiscal year have seen more encounters than the whole of the previous two years combined.

Last month, agents recorded 367 apprehensions and encounters — more than the total of the past 12 Januarys combined, which was 344.

“Chief Garcia is a phenomenal agent … If he’s asking for help, we do know that we’ve got a problem up there,” Chris Clem, the former patrol chief for the Yuma sector in Arizona, told Fox News.

Clem said that the northern border is often forgotten because the volume at the southern border is “astronomical.”

The desperate conditions in the south have also seen a steady flow of agents transferred there from the north, creating part of the “vulnerability,” Clem said.

He blamed electronic travel authorization for allowing migrants to travel “basically visa-free” from Mexico to Canada.

“And then at that point, they’re coming in,” he said, stressing that it needs a “policy response” from the Biden administration.

“We have to stand strong. We ought to stand firm with our partners. We need the administration to reach out to Canada, just like we need them to reach out to Mexico and hold them accountable to make sure both borders are secure,” Clem said.

As well as the strain of extra migrants, the crossing raises fears of cartels bringing in drugs — as well as emergency rescues needed as families put their lives on the line in sub-freezing temperatures.

The Swanton sector has seen families with young kids, even infants, crossing, and late last year provided life-saving aid in separate incidents in Vermont and upstate New York, Garcia said.

“It cannot be stressed enough: not only is it unlawful to circumvent legal means of entry into the United States, but it is extremely dangerous, particularly in adverse weather conditions,” the border chief warned.