With the election just around the corner, most of the immigration debate is focused on America’s southern border. However, lawmakers from the Northeast states are raising alarms about what they see as a brewing problem amid a dramatic rise of people illegally crossing into the country across the Canadian border.

The Swanton Sector, the stretch of the northern border between eastern New York and New Hampshire, is seeing a large surge of illegal border crossings.

The chief patrol agent for the Swanton Sector, Robert Garcia, says the number of apprehensions at the northern border skyrocketed over the last 12 months to 19,222, more than all of the arrests in the last 17 years combined. Those caught trying to cross into America over the last year came from 97 different countries, he says. 

A video shared by Mr. Garcia that tracks the number of apprehensions since the 2007 fiscal year shows arrests hovering around 1,000 every year until 2010, when they rose to 1,422. To 2021 from 2011, apprehensions stayed mostly below 1,000. In 2022, the arrests started to rise again, and in the 2023 fiscal year, they hit 6,925. 

The surge in illegal northern border crossings is leading state and federal lawmakers to raise concerns about the potential security risks. In the 2023 fiscal year, 484 people on the terrorist watch list were apprehended trying to cross the northern border. 

Congressman Nick Langworthy of New York introduced legislation in June to address the “national security” threat posed at the Canadian border.

According to the congressman, 143 people on the terrorist watch list and 1,274 pounds of fentanyl were stopped at the northern border in the first seven months of the 2024 fiscal year.  

“Our northern border, the world’s longest unsecured border, poses a major threat to our national security, with hundreds of thousands of unidentified individuals streaming into our communities every year,” Mr. Langworthy said in a statement. “The Biden Administration’s neglect has left us completely vulnerable — that’s why I introduced the Northern Border Security Enhancement and Review Act to hold the Department of Homeland Security accountable and ensure they report to Congress.”

The legislation would require the Department of Homeland Security to conduct an annual threat analysis for the northern border and update its strategy if necessary, provide classified briefings to Congress about the threat analysis, and develop methods to evaluate the effectiveness of the air and marine operations.

Senator Gillibrand and Senator Hassan introduced the bill in the Senate last month. Ms. Gillibrand, who is a Democrat from New York, said border patrol officials are “struggling to address a dramatic increase in the number of unauthorized border crossings” and called the legislation a “commonsense, bipartisan measure.”

In a recent interview with the public radio station at Albany, New York, WAMC, state lawmakers called for the legislature to repeal its Green Light Law due to the surge in northern border crossings. The law lets illegal immigrants apply for driver’s licenses without showing that they are in the state legally. It also prevents the Department of Motor Vehicles from sharing records with federal immigration agencies. 

“So far this year they’ve had 18,000 apprehensions in the Swanton sector, which runs from New Hampshire to Watertown. The next highest number is the sector out near Seattle, Washington and that’s just over a thousand apprehensions,” a New York state senator, Dan Stec, told WAMC. “So 80 to 90 percent of the illegal crossings on our northern border are happening here. It’s a growing problem, and it is very specific to New York State.”

Assemblyman Scott Gray told WAMC it is “unheard of that they can’t share information” and offered the dire prediction that if lawmakers don’t take action to address the situation at the northern border, “we’re going to end up with a vigilante situation.”

Mr. Stec, Mr. Gray, and Assemblyman Ken Blankenbush, whose districts are near the Canadian border, introduced legislation that would repeal the Green Light Law’s provisions for getting driver’s licenses in counties along the border. However, the law would remain the same for counties in other portions of the state.