Northern states saw record illegal border crossings under Biden admin

US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data show that illegal crossings at the US-Canada border surged to historic highs during the Biden administration, with records broken repeatedly over four years. Although reported numbers declined from those peaks during the Trump administration, illegal entries remain elevated in several northern states, and some jurisdictions are reporting more apprehensions in 2025 than they did during the Biden years. Northern-border apprehensions totaled roughly one million during the Biden administration, based on CBP figures.

Fourteen US states share the international boundary with Canada, a 5,525-mile border stretching across land and water. CBP figures indicate that most apprehensions and encounters have been concentrated in a handful of states, with New York accounting for nearly half of the total. Washington, Vermont, Maine, and Montana recorded the next highest totals, making those five states the primary drivers of northern-border enforcement activity in recent years, according to analysis by The Center Square.

The last year of the Biden administration, fiscal year 2024, marked a turning point for many northern states, with CBP data indicating the highest levels of illegal entries on record. At the height of the crisis at the northern border, reported illegal entries approached 200,000 in both 2023 and 2024, underscoring the scale of the increase compared with prior years.

Across fiscal years 2022 through 2025, CBP’s latest available data show 754,928 illegal border crossers reported across the 14 northern-border states. Totals from west to east were reported as follows: Alaska recorded 7,380; Washington 135,116; Idaho 620; Montana 32,036; North Dakota 14,818; Minnesota 8,315; Wisconsin 118; Michigan 50,321; Ohio 1,546; Pennsylvania 19,145; New York 363,910; Vermont 61,790; New Hampshire 82; and Maine 59,731.

Several states posted record highs earlier in the surge. Alaska, Idaho, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin reported record levels in 2023, according to CBP data. Montana and North Dakota, while down in 2025 from record highs set in 2024, still reported more illegal border crossers in 2025 than in 2022; in Montana, the 2025 figure was more than double the 2022 level. Publicly reported CBP numbers represent only the crossers that agents apprehend or formally encounter.

They do not include “gotaways,” CBP’s term for foreign nationals who enter between ports of entry, evade capture, do not make immigration claims, and do not return to their country of origin. CBP does not publicly release “gotaway” totals. The Center Square reported that it obtained internal estimates from Border Patrol agents indicating more than two million gotaways were identified during the Biden administration, while also noting the true number could be higher.

Additionally, The Center Square reported that the northern border has long faced structural challenges. Unlike the 1,954-mile US-Mexico border, the US-Canada boundary has no continuous border wall, less surveillance technology, and far fewer agents assigned to patrol the vast and often remote terrain. In some areas, officials have said that a single Border Patrol agent may be responsible for covering several hundred miles, making it difficult to determine how many illegal crossers pass through undetected.

In addition to rising unlawful entries, the outlet reported that agents at the northern border apprehended a record number of known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) during the Biden administration, 1,216, or 64 percent of KST apprehensions nationwide, despite having fewer resources than the southwest border.

In February, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at the northern border and ordered the US military to implement border security measures in the region. After focusing on restricting illegal entries at the southwest border, the administration acknowledged that much of the fentanyl and a significant share of KST apprehensions were linked to the northern border. The administration has also emphasized increased funding, recruitment, hiring, and new investments in surveillance and other technologies aimed at strengthening enforcement capacity along the US-Canada boundary.