From The Center Square

By Bethany Blankley

Several retired CBP officials have pointed out that not all Canadian border crossers are native-born but include foreign nationals who received Canadian travel documents.

The greatest number of Canadians who’ve illegally entered the U.S. or attempted to illegally enter in recorded U.S. history has been reported under the Biden-Harris administration and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration.

Since fiscal 2021 through July 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 150,701 Canadians illegally entered or attempted illegal entry into the U.S.

The majority were apprehended at the US-Canada border, followed by other locations nationwide, with a small number at the US-Mexico border, according to the data.

The greatest number of Canadians encountered or apprehended by CBP or Border Patrol agents was 47,126, in fiscal 2022. U.S. officials at the northern border reported the most, 40,600. But Canadians aren’t always apprehended at the northern border. The next greatest number reported was nationwide at 6,413, followed by 113 at the southwest border.

In fiscal 2023, the numbers were slightly less, totaling 44,700, with the majority reported at the northern border of 37,169, followed by 7,431 nationwide and 100 at the southwest border.

These numbers are up significantly from fiscal 2021, of 22,371. The majority in 2021, 16,193, were reported at the northern border, followed by 6,178 nationwide and 76 at the southwest border.

The overwhelming majority are single military age adults.

Several retired CBP officials have pointed out that not all Canadian border crossers are native-born but include foreign nationals who received Canadian travel documents. Canadian citizens for years have legally traveled to the U.S. for work and as tourists.

Another record-breaking number coming from Canada is over 1,100 individuals on the U.S. terrorist watch list, referred to as known or suspected terrorists (KSTs), who attempted to illegally enter the US-Canada border since fiscal 2021, The Center Square first reported.

This is the greatest number in U.S. history under any administration. They total more than a U.S. Army battalion.

They are being apprehended by U.S. authorities, not Canadians. They include an Iranian with terrorist ties living in Canada and a Canadian woman previously arrested by Texas officials for claiming to threaten to kill former President Donald Trump.

Canadian authorities claim to thoroughly vet so-called refugees when permitting entry. One granted entry in 2018 was a member of ISIS who was granted citizenship this year and went on to allegedly plot a terrorist attack against Canadians, The Center Square reported.

Some members of the Canadian Parliament continue to express alarm about increasing terrorist threats under the Trudeau government after the ISIS member was only arrested after French authorities notified Canadian authorities about his alleged terrorist connection. Another recent example is Canadian authorities taking nine years to arrest a Canadian woman on terrorism-related offenses after she traveled to Syria in 2015 to join ISIS, The Center Square reported.

More recently, a Pakistani national living in Canada was arrested after announcing his plan to carry out a mass shooting at a Jewish Center in Brooklyn, New York, after publicly expressing his support for ISIS for nine months, according to a Department of Justice announcement.

Members of Congress have introduced bills to secure the northern border, created a northern border security caucus. The U.S. House impeached Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over the border crisis. Republican lawmakers have also demanded increased security after Canadian authorities expanded a visa program to Palestinians, expressing concerns about a vetting process that may not identify those who support the terrorist organization Hamas. Ushered into power by Palestinian voters in 2006, Hamas holds a majority in the Palestinian Authority’s government. The U.S. State Department designated Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.

All officially reported CBP data excludes gotaways, those who evaded capture and illegally entered the U.S. They total over 2 million, The Center Square first reported. Officials have expressed concerns about how many unknown gotaways are in the U.S. connected to countries of foreign concern, state sponsors of terrorism and terrorist organizations. Several hundred connected to ISIS have illegally entered the U.S., authorities confirmed this year.

Despite claims by Canadian authorities that “the Canada-U.S. border is the best-managed and most secure border in the world,” numerous U.S. border security officials disagree, telling The Center Square the CBP data alone disproves their claim.

The number of Canadian illegal border crossers is not comparable to the nearly 3 million Mexican illegal border crossers under the Obrador administration since fiscal 2021. Among them, more than 22,000 Mexicans were apprehended by U.S. federal agents after illegally entering or attempting entry from Canada.

CBP data indicates that illegal border crossers holding travel documents from Canada and Mexico, America’s NAFTA partners, appear to be circumventing U.S. immigration law.

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Fall harvest is in the storehouse. Now, let’s put away all proposals to cap fertilizer inputs to save the earth. Canadian farmers are ensuring food security, not fueling the droughts, fires, or storms that critics unfairly attribute to them.

The Saskatoon-based Global Institute for Food Security (GIFS) did as fulsome an analysis as possible on carbon emissions in Saskatchewan, Western Canada, Canada, and international peers. Transportation, seed, fertilizer and manure, crop inputs, field activities, energy emissions, and post-harvest work were all in view.

The studies, published last year, had very reassuring results. Canadian crop production was less carbon intensive than other places, and Western Canada was a little better yet. This proved true crop by crop.

Carbon emissions per tonne of canola production were more than twice as high in France and Germany as in Canada. Australia was slightly less carbon intensive than Canada, but still trailed Western Canada.

For non-durum wheat, Canada blew Australia, France, Germany, and the U.S. away with roughly half the carbon intensity of those countries. For durum wheat, the U.S. had twice the carbon intensity of Canada, and Italy almost five times as much.

Canada was remarkably better with lentil production. Producers in Australia had 5.5 times the carbon emissions per tonne produced as Canada, while the U.S. had 8 times as much. In some parts of Canada, lentil production was a net carbon sink.

Canadian field peas have one-tenth the carbon emissions per tonne of production as is found in Germany, and one-sixth that of France or the United States.

According to GIFS, Canada succeeds by “regenerative agriculture, including minimal soil disturbance, robust crop rotation, covering the land, integrating livestock and the effective management of crop inputs.”

The implementation of zero-till farming is especially key. If the land isn’t worked up, most nutrients and gases stay in the soil–greenhouse gases included.

Western Canada has been especially keen to adopt the zero-till approach, in contrast to the United States, where only 30 percent of cropland is zero-till.

The adoption of optimal methods has already lowered Canadian carbon emissions substantially. Despite all of this, some net zero schemers aim to cut carbon emissions by fertilizer by 30 percent, just as it does in other sectors.

This target is undeserved for Canadian agriculture because the industry has already made drastic, near-maximum progress. Nitrates help crops grow, so the farmer is already vitally motivated to keep nitrates in the soil and out of the skies–alleged global warming or not. Fewer nutrients mean fewer yields and lower proteins.

The farmer’s personal and economic interests already motivate the best fertilizer use that is practically possible. Universal adoption of optimal techniques could lower emissions a bit more, but Canada is so far ahead in this game that a hard cap on fertilizer emissions could only be detrimental.

In 2021, Fertilizer Canada commissioned a study by MNP to estimate the costs of a 20 percent drop in fertilizer use to achieve a 30 percent reduction in emissions. The study suggested that by 2030, bushels of production per acre would drop significantly for canola (23.6), corn (67.9), and spring wheat (36.1). By 2030, the annual value of lost production for those crops alone would reach $10.4 billion.

If every animal and human in Canada died, leaving the country an unused wasteland, the drop in world greenhouse gas emissions would be only 1.4 percent. Any talk of reducing capping fertilizer inputs for the greater good is nonsense.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow for the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.