Northern border officials eye Trump immigration orders with hope, concern

ALBANY — State and local lawmakers along New York’s northern border are hopeful that executive orders from the Trump administration this week could shine a light on illegal crossings at the U.S.-Canadian border, which have increased dramatically in recent years.

However, immigration attorneys and law enforcement officials say the orders also could mean fewer resources for the northern border if border agents are relocated to the south, and also could potentially increase illegal crossings in the north as the federal government tightens restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border.

"I think getting specifics is going to be the key, because there’s a lot of devils in the details in a lot of these bills," said David Favro, sheriff of Clinton County, 28 miles of which are in one of the most active areas of the northern border. "If we don’t focus on the border as a total perimeter around our country, whatever efforts we take are going to fail," he said.

President Donald Trump on Jan. 20, his first day in office, signed a flurry of executive orders cracking down on immigration and increasing border security, declaring a national emergency at the southern border where the vast majority of illegal crossings happen. Some of the orders already are being challenged in court as being unconstitutional.

"In the meantime, it’s sowed a lot of fear and chaos," said Alexander T. Holtzman, an attorney who teaches immigration and border enforcement classes at Hofstra University.

"There are organizations I'm a part of quickly analyzing how this will affect all of our clients," said Holtzman, who also serves as director of the Deportation Defense Clinic at the Maurice A. Deane School of Law at Hofstra.

Last fall, Newsday interviewed residents along New York’s 445-mile northern border with Canada, known as the North Country. They said it was becoming an almost daily occurrence, especially during the summer months, to see immigrants who crossed illegally walking through fields, along roads and even on their properties. Llocal law enforcement, though, said there hasn’t been a significant change in crime rates.

It’s not immediately clear how Trump's orders will affect immigration across the northern border.

"We’re known as the forgotten border," said Assemb. Billy Jones (D-Plattsburgh), whose district borders Canada. "The more attention we get with the issues that we’re having, hopefully it will help."

Some state and local officials are taking the push for increased security and Trump’s selection of upstate New Yorker Tom Homan as his border czar as good signs.

"It can only be a good thing," said State Sen. Dan Stec (R-Queensbury), whose district borders Canada. "There’s no way that Tom Homan and the federal government are going to ignore the northern border."

Sealing the borders

Of the slew of executive orders signed last week, 10 were aimed at immigration and border security, including sending more resources and troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, temporarily suspending the refugee admissions program and ending what’s known as the U.S. Customs and Border Protection One app that allowed immigrants to schedule appointments to legally request asylum.

The vast majority of Trump’s executive orders were focused on the more than 2 million encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border. Encounters mean different types of events where a noncitizen is in contact with U.S. officials, including the apprehension and expulsion of those who entered without legal permission.

One executive order, however, called for the U.S. Northern Command, known as USNorthCom, which executes homeland defense missions, to "seal the borders" by "repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities."

This order presumably would include the northern land border, Holtzman said. Between the restrictions and call for more troops, more resources for border security could be sent to the northern border, but it’s unclear because the U.S.-Canada border wasn’t named in the order calling for resources, immigration attorneys said.

Hope for aid

Encounters at the northern land border have increased by nearly 82% from fiscal 2022 to fiscal 2024, going from more than 109,000 to nearly 199,000, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. Each encounter is not unique, so individuals may be counted more than once if they try to reenter.

In New York State, border encounters increased by more than 41% from 81,000 in fiscal 2022 to nearly 115,000 in fiscal 2024.

"We’re looking to stop the illegal crossings because it really becomes an unsafe situation for everyone involved," Jones said. There are drugs and human smuggling, a fear of the unknown with strangers walking on peoples’ properties, and it’s unsafe for the immigrants especially during the harsh winters, he said.

State Senate Republican leader Rob Ortt said he understands why the president's focus is on the southern border given the size of the problem, but he hopes the attention may help New York’s border with Canada. "If we get more resources, even if it’s a little bit, I think it would help."

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in her budget proposal last week proposed spending $8 million to send state troopers to help secure the northern border. When asked her thoughts on Trump’s orders, a Hochul spokesman said the governor is committed to public safety and securing the borders. "She's pushed Congress to fix our broken immigration system and called on the previous administration to surge resources to New York's northern border, and will continue to do so," spokesman Matt Janiszewski said in an email.

Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) said in an emailed statement, "While we must take steps to stop the chaos at our southern border, we cannot abandon our northern border in the process. We must secure the border, fix the broken asylum system that hasn’t been updated since the 1980s, and modernize the legal immigration system, all while making sure we treat people like human beings."

Concerns and fears

While the orders could send more resources to the northern border, Favro said he feared that border agents would be transferred to the southern border, creating even more staffing issues in the north.

Federal staffing data shows 2,019 Border Patrol agents for the entire northern border, compared with 16,878 on the southern border as of 2020, the most recent public data available.

Immigration is a system, so there’s the potential that a push on security at the southern border could push immigration in the other direction to the northern border, said Muzaffar Chishti, an attorney and director of the Migration Policy Institute’s office at New York University School of Law.

Many of those coming from Canada are flying into the country on travel visas from other countries and then crossing the border into the United States, whereas many of those crossing the southern border are coming from Central and South American countries fleeing violence and persecution, immigration attorneys and advocates said, adding that where they’re coming from may impact their decision of where to enter.

"I think these are very complex and personal decisions that individuals and families have to make about their safety and about their ultimate destination, and so it’s hard to tell," Holtzman said of whether illegal crossings would increase in the north as a result.

The orders may also cause some immigrants who would normally leave the country to stay, he said, for fear of not getting back in. Some enter the country illegally or by using work visas, to work, save money and then go back home, he said. 

Many businesses in the North Country, including farms and apple orchards, depend on migrants coming over with work visas, Jones said. "We don’t want it to impact that," he said. "It’s a legal process. People are vetted. And obviously, our small businesses need that labor to survive."

Fear of prosecution

By rolling back deportation rules and increasing enforcement, there could be a significant rise in prosecution of those that have crossed from Canada, advocates said.

And unlike the southern border or larger cities such as New York City, there are few legal aid groups for immigrants in the North Country, meaning they may not have access to representation, said Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, a policy and advocacy organization representing more than 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups statewide.

"The vast majority of people who come here are coming here for a better life," Awawdeh said. Many are seeking refuge and safety, having fled their homes, he said.

 "The audience for his (Trump's) executive orders, other than his base, is migrants who are planning to come to the U.S. and [he] clearly communicated with them that there’s no longer a welcome mat at the southern border," Chishti said.

But "migrants are a very smart group of people," he said, and they’ll be waiting over the next few months to see if the "rhetoric is really meeting the reality."