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Manitoba is seeing a spike in people illegally crossing the United States border into Canada.
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Including a Sept. 28 incursion which saw four men and a woman from Africa and a man who’s a permanent resident of Canada arrested under the Customs Act, there have been 85 people apprehended in the province to date in 2024, up from 75 in 2023.
“This is a complex issue, as many of the illegal crossers come to Canada to make a refugee claim. More and more, law enforcement is seeing smuggling organizations working to get the migrants across the border without detection. Human smuggling is a real concern,” Manitoba RCMP said in a release on Thursday.
A 42-year-old Winnipeg man who RCMP allege picked the migrants up in an SUV was charged with human smuggling and appeared in provincial court on Oct. 7.
“These smugglers are not in the business because they care about the migrants,” Sgt. Lance Goldau, head of the Manitoba RCMP’s Integrated Border Enforcement Team, said. “The smugglers are looking at the bottom line – getting as much money as they can with as little work as possible.”
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That means many migrants have to face the actual border crossing alone, RCMP said, with people dropped at a location far from a port of entry into Canada, and left to fend for themselves with vague directions to connect with someone waiting for them on the other side, creating major safety concerns.
“Some individuals who are illegally crossing the border between Manitoba, North Dakota and Minnesota are not aware of the extreme weather conditions and geography they may encounter,” Goldau said. “This lack of understanding has led to severe injury and death. They have to realize, too, that in extreme weather, even with all of our equipment, chances of a rescue are remote.”
An extreme example came in Jan. 2022, when the frozen bodies of a family of four from India were discovered near Emerson, metres from the U.S. border.
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