From Desk to Field: Reassigned Agents Are Catching More Illegal Aliens at Northern Border
Virginia Allen @Virginia_Allen5
Virginia Allen is a senior news producer for The Daily Signal and host of “The Daily Signal Podcast” and “Problematic Women.” Send an email to Virginia.
The U.S. northern border spans more than 5,500 miles, including Canada’s border with Alaska, making it the longest land border in the world—and historically challenging to patrol.
But now, for the “first time in years, we’ve been able to redeploy agents from processing centers back to the field, patrolling the land, and catching illegal aliens we simply couldn’t get to before,” Hilton Beckham, Customs and Border Protection assistant commissioner, told The Daily Signal.
Patrol efforts include “at-large operations targeting those already in the country,” Beckham said.
While every sector along the southern border has seen a decline in the number of illegal alien encounters, a handful of northern border sectors are reporting an increase in encounter numbers, including the in Detroit Sector.
In fiscal year 2024, Border Patrol encountered 624 illegal aliens in the Detroit Sector, which includes Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. So far in fiscal year 2025, Border Patrol has encountered twice as many, 1,281, illegal aliens in the sector.
“What’s really happening is, it’s just we’ve stepped up enforcement, especially in the last year,” a CBP Detroit Sector spokesperson told The Daily Signal, adding that the “change in administration, that’s changed our enforcement priorities.”
President Donald Trump has made border and immigration policy one of his greatest priorities since he returned to the Oval Office in January. Trump ended the Biden administration’s mass parole programs; reinstated the “Remain in Mexico” policy, requiring illegal aliens to wait outside the U.S. for their immigration hearing; and implemented a litany of border security measures.