RCMP said Thursday that 85 people have been apprehended illegally crossing into Manitoba from the U.S. so far this year.
Most of the people involved were from African countries, including Chad, Congo, Eretria, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan and Somalia. Others were from Brazil, Cuba, Iraq, Saint Helena and Yemen.
There were 75 such apprehensions in all of 2023.
Manitoba RCMP are responsible for monitoring about 520 kilometres of borderlands shared with North Dakota and Minnesota.
RCMP said in a news release that many of the people involved are seeking to make a refugee claim in Canada.
“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,” RCMP said in a news release Thursday, after the police service and the U.S. Border Patrol held a joint media event in Emerson and Pembina, N.D.
Sgt. Lance Goldau, head of the RCMP border enforcement team in Manitoba, said many migrants are dropped off at a location far from a port of entry and left to fend for themselves, with only vague directions to connect with someone waiting for them on the other side.
“These smugglers are not in the business because they care about the migrants,” he said in the release. “The smugglers are looking at the bottom line — getting as much money as they can with as little work as possible.”
Some migrants are not aware of the extreme weather and geography they might encounter, Goldau said.
“This lack of understanding has led to severe injury and death,” he said. “They have to realize, too, that in extreme weather, even with all of our equipment, chances of a rescue are remote.”
RCMP announced Wednesday that a Winnipeg man has been charged with human smuggling after a vehicle with five foreign nationals from Africa inside was pulled over east of Emerson on the night of Sept. 28.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca